Who we are:
The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance physics by fostering a vibrant, inclusive, and global community dedicated to science and society. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and around the world.
Position Summary:
The Staff Software Architect is responsible for developing and maintaining scalable, secure software solutions for APS, while leading the architecture strategy to align with the organization’s business goals and digital transformation initiatives. This role involves overseeing technical projects, mentoring teams, and ensuring that systems are optimized for performance and security.
Key responsibilities include translating customer and product requirements into comprehensive system solutions within technical, schedule, and cost constraints. The architect will perform functional analysis, timeline analysis, and will write software, and integration specifications.
A strong background in software development, system architecture, and cybersecurity is essential, along with expertise in software solution architecture. The architect must ensure seamless coordination of engineering dependencies and align system integration with APS’s long-term strategic vision.
Additionally, the role involves designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining products in line with the company’s architectural roadmap and quality standards. The architect will lead stakeholder meetings to define software requirements, manage complex systems, and mentor junior engineers.
The APS has a “remote first” concept that promotes equal treatment and equal access, independent of physical work location, with a majority of staff working primarily from remote work locations. This position could require at times in office work, various geographic events and meeting attendance as instructed by your Supervisor. APS values diversity and welcomes candidates from a variety of backgrounds. APS offers a dynamic work environment with an outstanding total compensation package including salary, outstanding benefits, and excellent paid time off.
Responsibilities:
Leadership & Strategy:
- Lead the technical design, development, and implementation of complex full-stack web applications and APIs, ensuring that the software not only meets business requirements but also adheres to industry standards and best practices. This includes mentoring and overseeing development teams to ensure high-quality project delivery and adherence to timelines.
- Develop and maintain an architecture strategy that aligns with business objectives and digital transformation initiatives, focusing on scalability, performance, and security. This involves creating a flexible architecture that can adapt to evolving technological landscapes.
- Collaborate closely with senior leadership, business units, and cross-functional teams to gather requirements, define system designs, and create comprehensive technical specifications. Ensure that technical solutions are not only effective but also align with architectural best practices, thereby meeting the strategic goals of the organization.
- Articulate the trade-offs, benefits, and risks associated with proposed architecture and design solutions. Provide technical mentorship to development teams, guiding them in best practices for coding, system architecture, and technology adoption.
Architect System Solutions:
- Ensure the logical and systematic conversion of customer and product requirements into robust systems solutions, taking into account technical, schedule, and cost constraints. This involves performing in-depth functional analysis, timeline analysis, and detailed trade studies.
- Execute system performance modeling to evaluate and optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of the architecture, ensuring that it meets the operational needs of the organization.
- Provide technical guidance on technology selection and architectural decisions, partnering with development teams to evaluate and integrate new technologies that comply with established architectural standards.
- Create and maintain documentation and diagrams that communicate architectural decisions, risk mitigation strategies, and detailed system designs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Analyze existing systems and infrastructure to identify opportunities for optimization, cost reduction, and modernization, leading efforts to integrate new solutions and streamline processes effectively.
Risk Management:
- Drive the adoption of industry standards and best practices for security and risk management throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring that all systems comply with relevant regulations and security frameworks.
- Research, analyze, and implement best-practice engineering methodologies and processes for product development. Provide essential technical guidance to development teams while overseeing the technical aspects of projects, including quality engineering practices like Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD).
- Identify technical risks and develop comprehensive mitigation strategies, introducing and recommending industry best practices and standards for ongoing projects. Continually evaluate emerging technologies to identify opportunities, trends, and best practices that can enhance the organization’s capabilities.
Additional Responsibilities:
- Manage relationships with external vendors, open-source communities, and third-party service providers, leveraging insights to develop innovative solutions. Actively participate in technical meetings and contribute to open-source projects when needed.
- Mentor junior and senior engineers, providing in-person guidance or through code reviews, assisting in problem-solving, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
- Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends, continuously seeking opportunities to introduce innovation and improve processes within the organization. Develop modifications to existing products to meet unique customer needs and support the development of next-generation products.
- Perform complex analysis, design, and development, including automated unit and integration testing. Develop custom integration components and maintain a highly available and recoverable environment , ensuring optimal performance and reliability.
- Document, maintain, and update policies, procedures, and controls for its software development life cycle, ensuring that best practices are followed at all stages of development.
- Work closely with business leads & product owners to fully understand business capabilities, pain points, and areas for improvement, thereby facilitating a proactive approach to software development and design.
- Other duties as assigned.
Information Systems Department:
The Information Systems departmental values complement and extend the APS Core Values. How we work and how we interact must embody these values, which encompass the areas of Customer Outcome Focus; Dedication and Responsibility; Quality and Agility; Curiosity, Open-mindedness, and Innovation; and Teamwork and Collaboration. The values are further described in a separate document, and every Information Systems employee has a responsibility for upholding them.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field. (directly relevant work experience in lieu of degree accepted).
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Minimum 7 years experience with hands-on professional software development software development, building, deploying, and maintaining customer facing applications.
- Minimum 3 years experience as a software architect, leading a technical team delivering software designs, and architecting large scale software systems.
- Proven track record of developing and delivering high-quality, business-critical software applications.
- Knowledge of industry standards and best practices in enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and risk management.
- Knowledge of common architectural patterns (e.g., microservices, event-driven architecture, CQRS) and when to apply them.
- Proficient in technical problem-solving, including decomposition, root cause analysis, solution development, implementation, and monitoring.
- Familiarity with a wide range of technologies, including cloud computing, data management, business intelligence, software application development, and DevSecOps solutions.
- Understanding of distributed computing concepts and experience dealing with challenges in distributed environments.
- Knowledge of setting up robust monitoring and logging systems for large-scale applications.
- Familiarity with container platform technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
- Expertise in object-oriented programming, particularly in JavaScript/TypeScript and modern front-end development techniques.
- Strong experience with web services and understanding of web protocols and standards (e.g., HTTP(S), SSL, TLS, TCP, NAT, WebRTC, WebSocket).
Travel: The position requires up to 5% of travel for in-person meetings with staff as well as periodic, as well as additional travel as assigned.
