Principal Software Architect

Principal Software Architect

Helping careers take flight. Reshaping an industry. Enable your career to be Made on Duck Creek.

Duck Creek Technologies is the intelligent solutions provider defining the future of the property and casualty (P&C) and general insurance industry. We are the platform upon which modern insurance systems are built, enabling industry to capitalize on the power of cloud to run agile, intelligent, and evergreen operations. Our modern SaaS solutions help insurers set a new standard and revolutionize how consumers interact with insurance companies.

Authenticity, purpose, and transparency are core to Duck Creek, and we believe insurance should be there for individuals and businesses when, where, and how they need it most. Our market-leading solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite, and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand. With more than 1,000 successful implementations to date, Duck Creek removes the IT burden for insurers so they can focus on the business of insurance.

We have a flock of more than 1,800 employees across the globe and are proud to be a Flexible-First employer. We empower our employees with the choice of working from an office, from home, or on a hybrid schedule. Our flexible-first environment fosters productivity, inclusion, collaboration, and ensures consistent employee experience regardless of location.

If working in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving company that is transforming one of the world's oldest and largest industries sounds exciting, let us know. We are excited you are considering Duck Creek as a future employer and hope you decide to join "The Flock"

The Principal Software Architect is a strategic technical leader responsible for driving architectural excellence across multiple domains and teams. This role blends deep technical expertise with leadership in modern technologies including AI/ML, cloud-native platforms, observability, and cloud security.

Job Functions & Responsibilities Architectural Leadership

• Acts as a Domain Architect for a major functional area, owning the architectural vision and roadmap.
• Defines and evolves cloud-native architectures using microservices, containers (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Leads the integration of AI/ML capabilities into products, including:
  • Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, GitHub Copilot, and LangChain
  • Model deployment using ONNX, Hugging Face, or custom APIs
  • Vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate) for semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

Cloud & Security Expertise

• Designs secure, scalable systems on AWS, Azure, or GCP, leveraging:
  • IAM, VPC, KMS, and Secrets Management
  • Zero Trust Architecture
  • Cloud-native security tools (e.g., AWS GuardDuty, Azure Defender)
  • DevSecOps practices with automated security scanning and compliance checks

Monitoring & Observability

• Implements observability best practices using:
  • Grafana for real-time dashboards and visualization
  • Prometheus for metrics collection and alerting
  • OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing
  • ELK/EFK stacks for log aggregation and analysis
• Ensures systems are resilient, observable, and self-healing

Technical Strategy & Innovation

• Champions modern tech stacks:
  • Backend: Go, Node.js, Java, .NET Core
  • Frontend: React, Angular, WebAssembly
  • Data: Kafka, Spark, Snowflake, MongoDB
  • AI/ML: TensorFlow, PyTorch, OpenAI APIs
• Drives DevOps and GitOps practices with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, ArgoCD)

Mentorship & Collaboration

• Mentors architects and senior engineers across teams
• Collaborates with product, security, and infrastructure teams to align architecture with business and compliance needs
• Participates in pre-sales and customer technical presentations

Vendor & Ecosystem Engagement

• Leads technical engagements with strategic partners like Microsoft, AWS, OpenAI
• Evaluates and integrates third-party platforms and APIs to accelerate innovation

Hands-On Contribution

• Designs, codes, and configures solutions for high-impact stories
• Performs architectural reviews, threat modeling, and performance tuning

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities & Behaviors

• Expert knowledge of object-oriented design and enterprise application architecture patterns
• Expert in C# and associated frameworks
• Deep understanding of distributed software patterns and full-stack technologies
• Proficient in relational data storage, database design, query optimization, and operational considerations
• Strong expertise in cloud platforms and software security best practices
• Skilled in XML technologies including schema design, XPath, and XSLT
• Familiarity with insurance domain and at least one Duck Creek product
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to work independently and manage others to deadlines
• Experienced in unit testing, source code management, estimation, and root cause analysis

Qualifications: What You've Done

Required:

• Bachelor's degree, or higher education level, or its foreign equivalent, in Computer Science, Computer Information Sciences, and/or related field.
• Total Work Experience: 20+ years typical (software development), 15 years minimum.
• Product Experience: 12 years minimum, 15+ years preferred.
• Domain Experience: 12 years minimum, 15+ years preferred.

Other Requirements:

• Travel: 0 25%
• Work Authorization: Legally authorized to work in the country of the job location.

Our global company celebrates & leverages the differences each employee brings to the table. Our success is a direct result of an inclusive culture where opportunities to learn from one another occur regardless of title, seniority, or background. This collaborative and team-oriented approach is at the core of how we operate and continuously improves our products, services, and systems.

As such, Duck Creek is committed to providing equal opportunity to all employees and applicants to recruit, hire, train, and reward employees for their individual abilities, achievements, and experience without regard to race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, marital, military, or any other protected status.

We strive to be an example to the world of inclusion, diversity, and equity in all things where employees are free to be their authentic selves in the workplace and in the communities in which we live. We believe in leading by example and are proud of the diversity of our team and our shared commitment to our Core Values: We Prioritize Respect; We Listen; We Care; We Add Value; and We Lead.

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