Principal Staff Software Engineer

Company Overview

At Motorola Solutions, we believe that everything starts with our people. We’re a global close-knit community, united by the relentless pursuit to help keep people safer everywhere. We build and connect technologies to help protect people, property and places. Our solutions foster the collaboration that’s critical for safer communities, safer schools, safer hospitals, safer businesses, and ultimately, safer nations. Connect with a career that matters, and help us build a safer future.

Department Overview

At Unified Communications, our vision is to build a safer world - unified by instant, secure and reliable communications. We build best-in-class broadband mission critical voice, video and data communications products. Our portfolio includes evidence platforms as well as Land Mobile Radio interoperability solutions.

Job Description

About the Role
 

We are seeking a Principal Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical evolution of our Unified Communications Platform. This role is responsible for defining the long-term architecture vision, driving platform modernization, establishing engineering standards, and enabling engineering teams to build scalable, secure, and reliable software.
The Principal Architect partners closely with Engineering Directors, Product Management, Technical Leads, and cross-functional teams to solve complex technical challenges and accelerate the adoption of modern engineering practices across the organization.
This is a hands-on architecture leadership role requiring a balance of strategic thinking, technical depth, and execution.
 

Key ResponsibilitiesArchitecture Strategy

• Define and evolve the target architecture for the platform.
• Develop technology roadmaps aligned with business and product objectives.
• Establish reference architectures, architecture principles, and engineering standards.
• Drive long-term technical strategy while balancing short-term delivery commitments.

Platform Modernization

• Lead modernization initiatives including cloud adoption, Kubernetes, microservices, API-first architecture, event-driven systems, observability, platform engineering, and automation.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption based on measurable business and engineering value.
• Drive simplification of legacy systems and reduction of architectural complexity.

Technical Leadership

• Partner with Technical Leads during solution design and implementation.
• Review architecture proposals for strategic initiatives and cross-functional programs.
• Guide engineering teams through complex technical decisions and trade-offs.
• Mentor senior engineers and Technical Leads to build architectural capability across the organization.

Proof of Concepts & Technology Evaluation

• Define technical evaluation criteria for new technologies.
• Guide and review Proofs of Concept executed by Technical Leads and engineering teams.
• Validate architectural feasibility, scalability, operational readiness, and security before adoption.
• Drive organization-wide adoption of approved technologies.

Architecture Governance

• Establish architecture review processes and governance practices.
• Define and maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), reference architectures, design templates, and technical standards.
• Ensure solutions adhere to security, scalability, reliability, and compliance requirements.
• Promote consistency and reuse across engineering teams.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with Product Management, Engineering, Customer Success, Operations, and Security teams to understand business priorities and customer needs.
• Influence technical direction across multiple product teams without direct authority.
• Represent architecture in strategic planning and engineering leadership discussions.

Operational Excellence

• Drive improvements in system reliability, observability, resilience, and operational efficiency.
• Champion engineering best practices for performance, availability, disaster recovery, and production readiness.
• Lead architectural reviews of critical production incidents and identify long-term improvements.

Success Measures
Within the first 12 months, you will:

• Establish a clear target architecture and modernization roadmap.
• Reduce architectural inconsistency across product teams.
• Improve engineering productivity through reusable platform capabilities and reference architectures.
• Build a sustainable architecture governance process without creating delivery bottlenecks.
• Mentor Technical Leads and strengthen architectural capability across the engineering organization.
• Drive measurable improvements in scalability, reliability, operational efficiency, and developer experience.

Basic Requirements

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with significant experience in architecture or technical leadership roles.
• Strong background in designing and evolving distributed systems at scale.
• Experience modernizing legacy applications into cloud-native architectures.
• Expertise in public cloud platforms (Azure and/or GCP preferred).
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, containers, networking, APIs, messaging systems, CI/CD, observability, and security best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Platform Engineering and Internal Developer Platforms.
• Experience with hybrid cloud and multi-cloud deployments.
• Familiarity with Unified Communications, networking, or mission-critical systems.
• Experience leading enterprise-scale modernization or cloud transformation programs.
• Contributions to engineering standards, architecture governance, or technology strategy.

Travel Requirements

None

Relocation Provided

None

Position Type

Experienced

Referral Payment Plan

Yes

EEO Statement

Motorola Solutions is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally-protected characteristic. 

We are proud of our people-first and community-focused culture, empowering every Motorolan to be their most authentic self and to do their best work to deliver on the promise of a safer world. If you’d like to join our team but feel that you don’t quite meet all of the preferred skills, we’d still love to hear why you think you’d be a great addition to our team.