Principal Architect - Digital Platforms & Engineering

About the Role

As Principal Architect – Digital Platforms & Engineering, you will be responsible for building and modernizing the platform foundation that powers our airline’s digital and enterprise transformation. This includes technical SaaS and engineering platforms that standardize integration, connect airline platforms, business SaaS systems, and self-hosted applications, and create a secure, scalable, and future-ready technology ecosystem.

The role requires a strategic yet hands-on architect who will baseline current platforms, identify redundancies and technical debt, and define the target-state architectural vision. You will then drive adoption across delivery teams, modernizing integration, engineering practices, and platform capabilities to unlock velocity and resilience at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Engineering

• Baseline the current platform landscape, assessing existing SaaS, airline systems, and self-hosted integrations to identify fragmentation and technical debt.

• Define the target-state platform architecture, ensuring seamless interoperability between airline platforms (PSS, loyalty, crew, ops, revenue), corporate SaaS systems (CRM, finance, HR), and self-hosted applications.

• Lead initiatives to remove technical debt and re-engineer architecture to be modular, API-first, and automation-enabled.

• Engineer standard integration frameworks using APIs, iPaaS, event-driven pipelines, and service meshes, creating reusable and secure building blocks.

• Establish platform guardrails for developers and solution teams that ensure performance, resilience, and compliance.

Technical SaaS & Engineering Platforms

• Evaluate and onboard technical SaaS platforms that enhance engineering excellence, including API management, workflow orchestration, observability, and integration automation.

• Ensure airline-specific platforms (reservation, operations, crew, loyalty, revenue management) integrate seamlessly with engineering and enterprise SaaS tools.

• Scale adoption of engineering enablement platforms—CI/CD orchestrators, IaC, container platforms, and developer service catalogs.

Delivery & Adoption

• Create adoption blueprints and roadmaps that drive delivery teams toward standardized engineering platforms and integration practices.

• Partner with developers, testers, operations, and product teams across the SDLC to embed platform usage and best practices.

• Act as the bridge between business-driven platform needs and technical engineering decisions, enabling adoption for both digital and enterprise teams.

Governance & Standards

• Define enterprise-wide platform integration standards, covering API design, event flows, data management, and zero-trust security principles.

• Provide governance and oversight to ensure enterprise delivery teams consistently use approved, standardized platforms.

• Continuously measure adoption and maturity, ensuring steady reduction of technical debt and increasing platform reusability.

Required Experience & Skills

• 12–16 years of technology experience, with deep expertise in enterprise platform engineering and integration architecture.

• Proven ability to baseline current enterprise platforms and lead the journey to target-state architecture while eliminating technical debt.

• Hands-on expertise in SaaS integration platforms (API management, iPaaS, workflow automation, event-driven architectures, observability).

• Experience with airline or complex transaction-heavy platforms (e.g., reservations, loyalty, revenue, flight operations, crew systems).

• Strong background in engineering practices: cloud-native architecture, CI/CD adoption, IaC, event streaming (Kafka, Pulsar, EventBridge).

• Demonstrated success in platform governance and adoption frameworks, ensuring alignment across large delivery organizations.

• Strong leadership skills with the ability to collaborate across delivery, business, and enterprise architecture communities.

Who Can Apply

• Senior enterprise or platform architects from digital-native or large-scale enterprises with experience modernizing platform ecosystems.

• Professionals who have successfully re-engineered platform architectures, addressing current vs. target state mismatches and reducing technical debt.

• Leaders with proven expertise in integrating domain platforms (airline or similar) with business SaaS and self-hosted enterprise applications.

• Architects passionate about integration standardization, platform adoption, and engineering modernization.