About the RoleThe Principal Architect is the technical steward for the Product Engineering organization. This role will be responsible for ensuring that every product, platform, API, SDK, and service fits together into a cohesive, scalable ecosystem. This is one of the most senior individual contributor roles within Product Engineering. Reporting to the Senior Director of Product Engineering, you will serve as a technical partner in defining the long-term architecture of Niantic Spatial's product platform while remaining actively engaged in the implementation and evolution of the technology.
This is a
hands-on engineering role - not a traditional enterprise architecture function. You will participate in architecture reviews, prototype complex solutions, contribute production code where it matters most, and mentor senior engineers. You will work closely with Product Management, Research, Engineering, and Design to ensure technical decisions advance the company's product vision while maintaining architectural consistency across the platform. Success here requires understanding not only how systems should be built, but why.
Organizational ScopeThe Principal Architect provides technical leadership across the entire Product Engineering organization, including the Product Foundations Team, SDK, Mobile Engineering, Web Engineering, and Delivery. The role partners closely with Research to guide the transition of new technologies into scalable, production-ready products.
What You'll DoTechnical Strategy- Define and evolve the long-term technical architecture for the Product Engineering ecosystem.
- Ensure products, services, SDKs, and applications share consistent architectural patterns and engineering principles.
- Balance short-term product delivery with long-term platform health and maintainability.
- Drive architectural decisions that improve scalability, reliability, security, developer experience, and operational simplicity.
Product Partnership- Partner closely with Product Management to understand product strategy and ensure technical investments support long-term customer value.
- Collaborate with Research to evaluate emerging technologies and define clear paths to productization.
- Help translate product vision into technical roadmaps and implementation strategies.
Architecture Leadership- Lead architecture reviews across Product Engineering.
- Establish engineering standards, design principles, and reference architectures.
- Guide system decomposition, API design, data architecture, integration patterns, and platform evolution.
- Ensure architectural consistency across cloud services, APIs, web applications, mobile applications, and native SDKs.
Hands-On Engineering- Design and prototype complex technical solutions.
- Contribute production code in areas of strategic importance.
- Review critical designs and implementation approaches.
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leads on architecture, software design, and engineering best practices.
- Assist engineering teams in solving difficult cross-cutting technical challenges.
Cross-Functional Leadership- Build strong technical partnerships across Engineering, Research, Product, Design, Security, Infrastructure, and Delivery.
- Facilitate technical alignment across multiple engineering teams.
- Identify opportunities to simplify systems, reduce technical debt, and improve developer productivity.
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to Product Engineering leadership.
What You'll Bring- 15+ years of software engineering experience designing and building large-scale software systems.
- Demonstrated success defining architecture across multiple products, services, and engineering teams.
- Deep experience designing distributed systems, cloud-native services, APIs, and developer platforms.
- Strong software engineering background with experience contributing production code in complex systems.
- Expertise in modern software architecture, system design, and engineering best practices.
- Experience partnering closely with product organizations to shape technical strategy around customer outcomes.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence across organizational boundaries.
Nice to Have- Experience building developer platforms, SDKs, or API ecosystems.
- Experience productizing research-driven technologies.
- Background in computer vision, spatial computing, AR/VR, robotics, or edge computing.
- Experience with Google Cloud Platform, distributed data systems, identity platforms, and modern web architectures.
- Experience designing systems spanning cloud services, web applications, mobile applications, and native runtimes.
- Experience with AI-assisted software development and agentic engineering workflows.
Core Technologies- Distributed systems • Google Cloud Platform • Amazon Web Services • REST APIs
- TypeScript / Node.js • C++ • Swift • Kotlin
- PostgreSQL / Spanner • Identity and Access Management
- Mobile and native SDK architecture • Computer vision and spatial computing
- Cloud architecture • System design • AI-assisted software development
What Success Looks Like- Product Engineering delivers a cohesive platform rather than a collection of independent products.
- Technical decisions consistently reinforce the company's product vision.
- New technologies from Research integrate naturally into the existing ecosystem.
- Teams share common architectural patterns, reducing duplication and improving maintainability.
- Engineers move quickly because the platform is consistent, well understood, and intentionally designed.
Compensation & BenefitsThe expected salary range for this role is $275,000 - $310,000 per year. Compensation also includes an annual bonus, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k), and more.
Location & Work ModelThis role is based in our San Francisco, CA office on a hybrid schedule with a minimum of 3 days per week in office.
Inclusive ApplicationWe know the strongest candidates don't always tick every box. If you're excited about this role and believe you could do it well, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every qualification listed - you may be exactly who we're looking for.
