Principal Architect

Specialty Building Products is currently looking for a Principal Architect to join our VALUES based organization to define and evolve the enterprise technology architecture supporting SBP's cloud-native and digital initiatives. This role establishes the long-term architectural vision, reference models, and technology roadmaps that guide application, platform, integration, and data engineering efforts. The Principal Architect ensures alignment between business strategy and technical direction while partnering closely with engineering leadership to translate architecture into executable plans.

This is a strategic technical leadership role focused on architectural direction and cross-domain coherence rather than day-to-day implementation governance.

Responsibilities:

Enterprise Architecture Strategy

• Define and publish target architecture across microservices, integration, data, and cloud domains.
• Maintain architectural decision records (ADRs) and reference models to guide engineering teams.
• Establish architectural principles governing modularity, interoperability, security, scalability, and maintainability.
• Develop and refine multi-year technology roadmaps aligned to business strategy and operational priorities.

Cross-Domain Architectural Governance

• Provide architectural guidance across application, data, integration, and cloud domains.
• Facilitate architecture forums and design reviews for major initiatives.
• Evaluate and recommend technology selections in partnership with engineering and platform leadership.
• Ensure new solutions align with enterprise integration patterns, data governance standards, and security requirements.
• Guide modernization and migration initiatives.

Cloud & Distributed Systems Direction

• Define high-level patterns for cloud-native architectures on Microsoft Azure.
• Establish principles for event-driven systems, API-first development, identity, and distributed data management.
• Guide resiliency, availability, and scalability expectations for enterprise systems.
• Define reference models for containerization, integration messaging, and service boundaries.

Business & Technical Alignment

• Partner with business and IT leadership to translate strategic objectives into architectural direction.
• Collaborate with Security, Networking, Data, and Engineering leaders to ensure cohesive enterprise solutions.
• Provide architectural risk assessments during major initiative planning.

Mentorship & Influence

• Mentor senior engineers and architects.
• Foster architectural literacy across the organization.
• Promote long-term thinking, technical debt reduction, and architectural consistency.
• Engage in critical incident discussions when architectural decisions are implicated.

Experience:

• 10+ years in software architecture and engineering, including 5+ years designing enterprise-scale systems on Microsoft Azure.
• Demonstrated experience defining enterprise architecture standards adopted across multiple teams.
• Proven success aligning architecture with business strategy.
• Experience guiding modernization of legacy systems into cloud-native architectures.
• Strong background in distributed systems, integration patterns, and enterprise data flows.
• Experience influencing technical direction in collaborative environments.

Education:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or related field.

Required Azure & Technical Expertise:

• Azure cloud architecture patterns
• Microservices and API-first architectures
• Event-driven systems (Event Hubs, Service Bus, Kafka concepts)
• Identity and access management (Azure AD / Entra , OAuth/OIDC)
• Containerization and AKS concepts (design-level guidance)
• Enterprise integration patterns
• Data platform awareness (Synapse, Databricks, ADLS concepts)

Preferred Qualifications:

• AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert)
• TOGAF or similar architectural framework experience
• Experience supporting digital commerce or revenue-impacting systems
• Familiarity with AI-enabled systems and emerging platform capabilities

Specialty Building Products is the leading distributor of specialty building products in North America. SBP operates under the brands U.S. LUMBER, Alexandria Moulding, REEB Millwork, DW Distribution, Millwork Sales and Amerhart. We serve 45 states in the U.S. and 8 provinces in Canada from over 40 locations. Here at SBP we are a people first organization, our team is built upon strong culture and standards for success.

We value your perspective and want to learn more about you with a commitment to laying the foundation for you to build a successful career with us. Join us and EVOLVE your future at Specialty Building Products!

Being a part of SBP you will be eligible for many benefits. Full-Time benefits would include:

• Medical, Dental, Vision given on the 1st of the month following 30 days of employment
• Company-Paid Life Insurance & Disability
• 401(k) with Company Match
• Company-Paid Time Off
• Paid Holidays & Floating Holidays
• PLUS ADDITIONAL PERKS!

We are proud to have the best team in our industry. We have experienced a…