Senior Principal Embedded Systems Architect

Senior Principal Embedded Systems Architect

As a Senior Principal Systems Architect, you define and drive the architectural vision for complex, connected product ecosystems, with deep specialization in embedded software architecture. You ensure enterprise-wide alignment of system and software architectures with business strategy, customer needs, and emerging technology standards while enabling scalable, secure, reliable, and high-performing solutions across product portfolios.

What will you do?

You lead the development of architectural roadmaps that span hardware, embedded software, connectivity, cybersecurity, cloud integration, and system-level capabilities. Working closely with Solution Architects, Enterprise Architects, Product Management, Engineering, and cross-functional stakeholders, you establish architectural standards, define quality attributes, and ensure consistency across product lines. You integrate customer insights, market trends, and technology advancements into architectural decisions that deliver differentiated customer value and support long-term business growth.

As a recognized technical authority in embedded systems and system architecture, you drive the adoption of advanced technologies, methodologies, and engineering practices that improve product functionality, user experience, maintainability, security, and operational performance. You balance strategic architectural leadership with deep technical engagement, guiding the design and implementation of complex embedded software platforms, real-time systems, edge computing solutions, connectivity frameworks, and intelligent system capabilities.

You serve as a subject matter expert whose influence extends across multiple business and operational areas. You address highly complex and ambiguous technical challenges that span system, software, and platform domains, leveraging deep industry expertise and architectural knowledge to develop innovative solutions. You establish reliability, safety, security, and performance requirements while fostering a culture of built-in quality throughout the product lifecycle.

Most of your work involves defining advanced architectural frameworks, technical strategies, governance models, and engineering practices that guide product development and technology evolution. You evaluate technology investments, assess emerging industry trends, and provide strategic recommendations that have significant short- and medium-term impact on product portfolios, technology direction, and organizational capabilities.

You provide technical leadership and mentorship across engineering organizations, helping teams clarify complex requirements, evaluate architectural tradeoffs, and make informed decisions in uncertain or rapidly evolving environments. Through your expertise in both systems architecture and embedded software architecture, you ensure that products are technically robust, strategically aligned, and positioned for future innovation and growth.

What are the key skills we are looking for?

• Define, communicate and maintain system and embedded software architecture strategies across platforms and product lines.

• Develop long-term architectural roadmaps aligned with business objectives, customer needs, market direction and technology evolution.

• Ensure architectural consistency, scalability, security, reliability, safety, and quality across products and platforms.

• Lead architecture reviews and governance for complex embedded and software-intensive systems.

• Drive innovation through adoption of emerging technologies, development methodologies, tools, and architectural patterns.

• Partner with Solution Architects, Enterprise Architects, Product Management, and Engineering leaders to align product and organizational capabilities.

• Translate customer, market, and business requirements into robust system and software architecture.

• Provide technical leadership for complex architectural challenges, guiding teams through critical design decisions and tradeoffs.

• Establish architecture standards, reference architectures, and best practices for embedded software and system development.

• Influence strategic technology decisions that shape future product platforms and organizational technical direction.

What qualifications will make you successful?

• Experience defining end-to-end system architectures for complex embedded products.

• Demonstrated ability to create and analyze product use cases, operational concepts, system requirements, and feature specifications.

• Strong understanding of requirements decomposition, interface definition, bidirectional traceability, architectural modeling, and verification planning.

• Ability to balance product functionality, safety, cybersecurity, performance, cost, schedule, lifecycle, and maintainability in architectural decisions.

• Extensive experience designing embedded software architectures for real-time, high-reliability, high availability and safety-critical systems.

• Deep understanding of RTOS-based and bare-metal architecture.

• Strong knowledge of the C programming language and object-oriented programming principles, with hands-on experience developing embedded software in C and C++. Knowledge of ASM is a plus. 

• Experience with multicore processing, task allocation and affinity, inter-process communication, memory management, bootloaders, board-support packages, device drivers, middleware, and diagnostics.

• Ability to establish scalable and maintainable software frameworks that support product-line reuse and long-term evolution

Impact & Scope

• Recognized enterprise-wide expert in systems and embedded software architecture.

• Influences technology strategy and architectural direction across multiple product portfolios.

• Solves highly complex technical and business challenges with significant organizational impact.

• Drives technical excellence, innovation, and long-term platform sustainability across the organization.

• Provides leadership in uncertain or rapidly evolving situations, developing actionable recommendations that enable informed business and engineering decisions.

At Schneider, we believe that every employee is a talent who deserves equal opportunities. This means you matter. Every individual needs to feel valued, supported, and treated fairly to do their best work.

Our Total Rewards is our way of saying: “We see you. We value you”. It’s more than just pay and benefits- it’s a meaningful investment in you. It is designed for you to perform, grow, feel safe, and elevate your potential to shine as an impact maker.

For this U.S. based position, the expected pay range is USD 168,800 - USD 253,200 per year. This pay range includes base pay and short-term incentives. The compensation range for this full-time position applies to candidates located within the United States. Our pay ranges are determined by reviewing roles of similar responsibility and level. Within the pay range, individual pay is determined by several factors including performance, knowledge, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Schneider Electric is there when it matters most to you

Our Total Rewards package outlines all the benefits and support you’ll enjoy as part of the Schneider Electric team:

Care for Yourself and Your Family. We ensure you feel secure with benefits that help you and your family thrive: medical (with member reward points), dental, vision, and basic life insurance, Benefit Bucks (credits to apply towards your benefits), flexible work arrangements, paid family leaves, well-being programs, 12 holidays per year, 20 days of paid time off per year (pro-rated in the first year of employment based on start date).

Invest and Plan Your Future. We help you plan and invest for the future with competitive pay and programs: your base salary, short-term incentives or sales incentives, opportunities to own company shares (eligibility depends on start date), and 401(k) + match.

Grow Your Skills and Career. We commit to helping you grow with ongoing performance and development conversations, Senior Talent Program, global career opportunities, access to our Schneider Career Hub for new positions, projects, and mentors, and learning platforms like Coursera to equip you with the skills for today and tomorrow.

Team Up in the Workplace. We encourage teaming up through project opportunities on the Schneider Career Hub, smart ways to collaborate, celebrating contributions via a recognition program (including service anniversary), sharing your voice in our engagement survey, and fostering an inclusive, caring workplace.

Support Your Community. We make a difference in your community with volunteer leave, programs through the Schneider Electric Foundation, initiatives that support youth education, and military leave benefits.

If you believe this job posting is not compliant with applicable state pay transparency laws in the U.S., please notify the Company as soon as possible upon discovery by completing this form Job Posting Compliance Form.

Looking to make an IMPACT with your career?

When you are thinking about joining a new team, culture matters. At Schneider Electric, our values and behaviors are the foundation for creating a great culture to support business success. We believe that our  IMPACT values – Inclusion, Mastery, Purpose, Action, Curiosity, Teamwork – starts with us.

IMPACT is also your invitation to join Schneider Electric where you can contribute to turning sustainability ambition into actions, no matter what role you play. It is a call to connect your career with the ambition of achieving a more resilient, efficient, and sustainable world.

We are looking for IMPACT Makers; exceptional people who turn sustainability ambitions into actions at the intersection of automation, electrification, and digitization. We celebrate IMPACT Makers and believe everyone has the potential to be one.

Become an IMPACT Maker with Schneider Electric – apply today!

€40 billion global revenue
+9% organic growth
150 000+ employees in 100+ countries

You must submit an online application to be considered for any position with us. This position will be posted until filled.

Schneider Electric aspires to be the most inclusive and caring company in the world, by providing equitable opportunities to everyone, everywhere, and ensuring all employees feel uniquely valued and safe to contribute their best. We mirror the diversity of the communities in which we operate, and ‘inclusion’ is one of our core values. We believe our differences make us stronger as a company and as individuals and we are committed to championing inclusivity in everything we do.

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