principal architect- engineering

Job Summary and Mission
As a Principal Architect within Starbucks Technology, you lead architecture development for global IT solutions spanning Legal Technology, Azure (including Azure Translate), AWS, Atlassian, and ServiceNow. This role is intentionally hands-on — closer to the practice than a strategy-only EA — and is accountable for converting business need into architectures, designs, and working solutions across this full technology ecosystem. As a senior member of the architecture community, you champion best practices and process improvement, but your credibility comes from direct, working-level fluency in the platforms themselves, not solely from frameworks and roadmaps.

This person must be equally comfortable evaluating out-of-the-box and SaaS platform capabilities as they are assessing when a custom-built tool or integration is the better path. A core part of this role is bringing sound build-versus-buy judgment to the table — recognizing when existing platforms can be configured or extended to meet a need, and when building a purpose-built tool will deliver more value, flexibility, or cost efficiency.

The defining measure of success for this role is the ability to synthesize cross-platform, hands-on technical insight into an optimization strategy — identifying where to cut redundant or underused software, where to consolidate capability, where to augment with new tooling (built or bought), and where custom development is the smarter investment — while simultaneously elevating the organization's security posture by embedding security insight directly into architecture and platform decisions.

Summary of Key Responsibilities
Hands-On Ecosystem Architecture

• Evaluate build-versus-buy trade-offs for each capability gap identified — weighing total cost of ownership, flexibility, security, and maintenance burden of custom tooling against configuring or extending existing SaaS/out-of-the-box platforms
• Design and prototype custom tools or integrations when a build decision is warranted, rather than defaulting to vendor-provided solutions
• Maintain deep, working-level fluency across multiple domains and enterprise programs— able to move from strategy conversation to configuration review in the same meeting
• Personally build and maintain architecture diagrams, data flow maps, and integration inventories across all five platform areas rather than delegating artifact creation
• Prototype, test, and validate integration patterns directly instead of relying solely on vendor documentation or secondhand reporting from engineering teams
• Stay current on platform-specific capabilities, licensing models, and roadmap changes for each of the five ecosystems

Software & Platform Rationalization

• Build and continuously maintain a cross-platform capability map identifying overlapping, redundant, or underutilized tools across multiple domains
• Deliver regular, data-backed rationalization recommendations\: what to cut, what to consolidate, what to augment, and the expected cost/complexity impact of each
• Quantify the business case for rationalization decisions, including cost savings, reduced maintenance burden, and reduced integration complexity
• Partner with finance and vendor management to validate license utilization and total cost of ownership across the platform portfolio
• Present rationalization findings in a way that directly and measurably influences leadership’s technology investment strategy

Security Posture Enhancement

• Proactively surface security risks and gaps discovered through hands-on platform work, including misconfigurations, excessive access, unpatched integrations, and data exposure risks
• Bring security-by-design thinking into every architecture decision across the five platforms rather than treating security as a separate downstream review
• Partner directly with security and compliance teams to translate architecture-level findings into actionable remediation plans
• Establish and enforce security standards for integrations, APIs, identity/access management, and data handling across multiple domains and enterprise programs
• Track and report measurable improvement in security posture resulting from architecture-driven changes

Future State Planning and Road-mapping

• Develop capability views, strategies, architectures, and roadmaps for business and technology capabilities
• Advise functional and technology leaders in defining priorities, key initiatives, and organizational alignment to support informed business decisions
• Evaluate industry and technology trends and translate them into Starbucks-specific strategies, plans, models, principles, and designs across the covered ecosystems

Concept and Business Case Development

• Partner with business capability and technology service owners to develop concepts from ideation through business case, grounded in hands-on technical validation
• Assess the value and impact of emerging technologies by leading opportunity assessments and proofs-of-concept across multiple domains and enterprise programs
• Assist in development of enterprise strategy proposals based on environmental analysis, opportunity identification, value cases, and risk

Solution Design and Facilitation

• Partner with leadership to assess business case for readiness for design across multiple domains and the enterprise
• Develop multiple domain and enterprise solution options across business, information, and technology domains
• Facilitate architectural design and on-going change request approvals for programs across multiple domains
• Manage program and architectural interdependencies between programs across multiple domains and the enterprise
• Facilitating the understanding and adoption of the solution architectures with the capability and service teams
• Maintain architecture artifacts across the business, information, technology, and security architectural domains

Policy Definition and Governance

• Evaluate technology and business changes across the covered platforms for policy impacts
• Govern solution architectures against defined principles, policies, and reference architectures, with particular attention to security standards
• Prepare, champion, and educate client groups and teams on changes in policies and practices across multiple domains and enterprise programs

Managing Teams

• Develop partners indirectly through coaching and mentoring
• Assist in development of strategic and operational plans for the work group
• Support EA managers in promoting a successful attitude, confidence in leadership, and teamwork

Program Management

• Lead the design and shape of programs across multiple domains and the enterprise to introduce strategic technology transformation and change including assisting on the development of business case
• Lead, coordinate, and facilitate cross-functional team members (business and technology) in activities related to architecture as part of the strategic program
• Works with IT PMO, business, and IT to ensure work necessary to achieve strategic programs are included in the Information Technology portfolio and prioritized appropriately

Domain Proficiency

• Demonstrate functional and business knowledge for multiple domain and enterprise context
• Act as a subject matter expert and provide consulting, guidance, and recommendations
• Continuous development of domain knowledge in both the industry and the Starbucks enterprise

Leadership

• Demonstrate accountability and make timely, appropriate decisions across the five platform areas
• Take calculated risks and challenge the status quo, particularly in identifying rationalization and security opportunities
• Develop partnerships and influence others both directly and indirectly
• Motivate and collaborate to create a team environment that enables team-based fulfillment of objectives
• Provide coaching, direction, and leadership support to team members to achieve partner, business, and customer results