Software Architect

Description

The company is a global leader in materials science and engineering solutions, and its work sits underneath virtually every new semiconductor chip and advanced display made worldwide.

The equipment it builds and services supports AI and speeds up the commercial launch of next-generation semiconductor chips.

The Software Architect sets the technical vision, architecture and design for complex software products and platforms, leads technically across development teams, and makes sure solutions are scalable, reliable, secure and maintainable, in line with product strategy and business goals.

Success in this role means architecture that is scalable, reliable, secure and maintainable for current and future products.

Architectural risk and technical debt go down, with visible progress on planned refactoring.

Software quality, performance, testability, debuggability and delivery predictability improve.

Architecture standards and reusable solutions get adopted across engineering teams.

Technical leadership grows, and the teams rely less on individual experts.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end software architecture for assigned products, platforms and major subsystems.
• Turn product, functional and non-functional requirements into sound technical concepts and architecture designs.
• Lead architecture and design reviews, approve technical solutions, and set software design principles, standards and best practices.
• Guard the product design against erosion by spotting technical debt, refactoring needs, infrastructure limits and long-term scalability risks.
• Steer technology selection, system integration, API strategy, modularity, performance tuning and modernization.
• Work with product management, systems, algorithms, hardware, DevOps, quality and field teams to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Give hands-on help through design and code reviews, proof-of-concepts and resolving hard technical blockers.
• Coach technical leads and engineers, build architectural thinking, and encourage knowledge sharing across engineering.
• Assess emerging technologies and recommend adoption based on technical value, risk, return on investment and fit with the organization.
• Make sure software is high quality, reliable, debuggable, maintainable, secure and performant, from delivery through operations.
• Act as technical authority for assigned products or platforms while building alignment across teams and architecture forums.
• Weigh business priorities, delivery commitments, product evolution and existing technical debt against each other.
• Challenge weak solutions early, encourage critical thinking, and write clear decision records for major architecture choices.
• Shape product and technology roadmaps with forward-looking architectural guidance.
• Grow technical talent and build a culture of engineering excellence, accountability and continuous learning.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering or a related field.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant architecture and system design responsibility.
• Solid grounding in architecture patterns, object-oriented design, distributed systems, APIs and modular application design.
• Skilled in one or more modern languages such as C++, C, Java or Python.
• Hands-on experience with the software development lifecycle, Agile delivery, CI/CD, DevOps, automated testing and code-quality tools.
• Proven ability to analyze complex requirements, make sound technical calls, and explain trade-offs to technical and business audiences.
• Strong problem-solving, influencing, collaboration, and written and verbal communication skills.
• Preferred: experience architecting large-scale, high-reliability, customer-facing, industrial or hardware-coupled software.
• Preferred: knowledge of cloud-native technologies, containers, microservices, high-performance computing, AI/ML or data-intensive architectures.
• Preferred: experience in semiconductor equipment, inspection, metrology, imaging, automation or other complex engineering domains.
• Preferred: a track record of leading technical transformation, reducing technical debt, and improving engineering productivity and quality.
• Preferred: experience working with globally distributed, cross-functional teams.

Conditions

Base pay range: $152,000.00 - $209,000.00.

Pay depends on location, hire grade, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and fairness to current team members.

For sales roles, the posted range is Target Total Cash: base salary plus target bonus at 100% goal achievement.

Based in Benicia, CA.

Full-time, regular assignee position.

Travel: 10% of the time.

Relocation eligible.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package.
• Possible eligibility for a bonus and a stock award program, where applicable.
• Programs that support health and wellbeing, and personal and professional growth, at work and at home.
• Support to learn, develop and grow your career.