Location: Hybrid- New York or Metropark



About the Team:

We are seeking a Principal Systems Architect to drive the end-to-end technical architecture across a multi-product, cloud-native SaaS platform undergoing enterprise modernization and AI enablement. Operating as an industry expert and key technical authority, you will navigate high ambiguity to establish multi-year architectural strategies, define target-state architecture, and build reference implementations adopted across the entire engineering organization.

This is a hands-on, senior individual contributor role for an organizational force multiplier - a "10x" engineer who demonstrates the power of one. You will align cross-functional priorities, solve critical enterprise challenges, and work shoulder-to-shoulder with teams from whiteboard to production, raising the standard of engineering excellence company-wide.

Responsibilities:

• Define end-to-end, outcome-based solutions across product lines and engineering domains - ensuring multi-system interoperability, alignment to enterprise architecture standards, and capability reuse.
• Author architectural blueprints and decision records; partner with Product Management to evaluate emerging technologies and translate business strategy into multi-year technical roadmaps.
• Design multi-tenant, event-driven, microservices systems at scale - messaging architectures, data partitioning strategies, and web APIs (REST, GraphQL) - setting enterprise standards for application security.
• Stay hands-on: build proofs of concept and reference implementations, review critical pull requests, and set engineering standards through working code - not just documents.
• Own AWS cloud architecture across container orchestration (Kubernetes/EKS) and serverless (Lambda), standardizing the deployment lifecycle through Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
• Design enterprise-grade AI agents and LLM-powered capabilities - MCP-based services, orchestration, tool use, and evaluation - with human-in-the-loop governance; partner with Data teams to operationalize production ML.
• Lead complex legacy modernization and migration programs with phased, de-risked delivery strategies; advise executive leadership on technical risk assessment.
• Exercise wide autonomy to mentor senior and staff engineers, run cross-team architecture reviews, and resolve critical, enterprise-level challenges where precedent does not exist. Responsible for developing resolution to critical issue.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree with 15+ years of experience, Master's degree with 12+ years, or PhD with 8+ years in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Progressive software engineering background, including significant tenure at a Principal/Architect level shaping platform strategy.
• Expert-level proficiency in Java and Python, alongside broad multi-language proficiency.
• Proven history of designing resilient, high-throughput distributed systems and data pipelines operating at scale.
• Hands-on mastery of cloud platforms (Kubernetes, serverless, Terraform/IaC) and modern data tooling.
• Direct experience operationalizing enterprise AI/LLM product capabilities, agent orchestration, and evaluation frameworks.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills-capable of translating architectural trade-offs for engineers, executive leadership, and compliance bodies.
• Exercises wide latitude in high-ambiguity environments to establish technical direction and solve critical enterprise challenges.

Nice to Have

• Substantial exposure to the life sciences sector, specifically regarding clinical trial platforms (EDC, CTMS, eTMF) or similar high-compliance GxP software environments.
• Advanced AWS credentials or a demonstrated history of architecting sophisticated, large-scale solutions on the AWS cloud platform.

As with all roles, Medidata sets ranges based on a number of factors including function, level, candidate expertise and experience, and geographic location. Pay ranges for candidates in locations other than New York City, may differ based on the local market data in that region.

The salary range for positions that will be physically based in New York or Metropark is $157,500 - $210,000.

Base pay is one part of the Total Rewards that Medidata provides to compensate and recognize employees for their work. Most sales positions are eligible for a commission on the terms of applicable plan documents, and many of Medidata's non-sales positions are eligible for annual bonuses. Medidata believes that benefits should connect you to the support you need when it matters most and provides benefits, including medical, dental, life and disability insurance, 401(k) matching, family leave, flexible paid time off; and 10 paid holidays per year.

We will accept applications on an ongoing basis until we fill the position.

Salary Pay Transparency

Compensation for the role will be commensurate with experience. The total expected compensation range will be between $157500 and $210000, representing the base salary (or annualized salary based on estimated hourly compensation) and target bonus.