Software Architect - Benicia, CA, United States
$132,000 - $181,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 13 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Software Architect defines and drives the technical vision, architecture, and design of complex software products and platforms, providing technical leadership across development teams.
What you'll do
- Define and own the end-to-end software architecture for assigned products, platforms, and major subsystems.
- Translate product, functional, and non-functional requirements into robust technical solution concepts and architectural designs.
- Lead architecture and design reviews, approve technical solutions, and establish software design principles, standards, and best practices.
- Guide technology selection, system integration, API strategy, modularity, performance optimization, and modernization initiatives.
- Collaborate with product management, systems, algorithms, hardware, DevOps, quality, and field teams to deliver end-to-end solutions.
- Mentor technical leads and engineers, strengthening architectural thinking and promoting knowledge sharing.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant responsibility for architecture and system design.
- Strong knowledge of software architecture patterns, object-oriented design, distributed systems, APIs, and modular application design.
- Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as C++, C#, Java, or Python.
- Experience with software development lifecycle practices, Agile delivery, CI/CD, DevOps, automated testing, and code-quality tools.
- Proven ability to analyze complex requirements, make sound technical decisions, and communicate trade-offs.
Nice to have
- Experience architecting large-scale, high-reliability, customer-facing, industrial, or hardware-coupled software systems.
- Knowledge of cloud-native technologies, containers, microservices, high-performance computing, AI/ML, or data-intensive architectures.
- Experience in semiconductor equipment, inspection, metrology, imaging, or automation domains.
- Track record of leading technical transformation, reducing technical debt, and improving engineering productivity and product quality.
- Experience working with globally distributed and cross-functional teams.
Skills: software architecture, scalable, reliable, secure, hardware-coupled software systems, semiconductor equipment, inspection
This role has been open 1 day — well below the 48-day median for Software Engineering Semiconductor roles.
Software Engineering Semiconductor · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
360
|
Median days open
48 d
|
Median salary
$148k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Applied Materials | All employers we track in this specialty (360 roles · 57 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 25 | 360 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 155 | 6164 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 35 d | 48 d (−13 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $148k |
Skills observed across this category: software architecture, scalable, reliable, secure, hardware-coupled software systems, semiconductor equipment, inspection
Who's hiring in this category
- Keysight Technologies · 38 open roles · median 27 d
- KLA Corporation · 30 open roles · median 142 d
- Cadence Design Systems · 29 open roles · median 203 d
- NVIDIA · 28 open roles · median 41 d
- Micron Technology · 27 open roles · median 40 d
- Applied Materials (this employer) · 24 open roles · median 47 d
How we counted: 360 open Software Engineering Semiconductor (Systems Software) roles from 57 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 14 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.