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 …