Principal Digital Architect

Caterpillar Inc.

Principal Digital Architect at Caterpillar defining and governing architecture for digital platforms. Collaborating across teams to ensure scalability, performance, and security in system designs.

Posted 5/7/2026full-timeChicago • Illinois • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $147,760 - $240,110 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsDockerGraphQLGRPCJavaKubernetesNoSQLPythonSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own and define solution and platform architectures for large‑scale, distributed systems from concept through production.
Create architecture that meets high standards for scalability, performance, resilience, and security.
Partner closely with business leaders, product owners, engineering managers, and delivery teams to ensure architectural alignment with business outcomes.
Assess, select, and introduce new technologies, including proof‑of‑concept development and architectural spikes.
Establish and enforce architectural standards, patterns, and best practices across platform teams.
Provide architectural guidance and mentorship to engineering teams, ensuring high‑quality implementation.
Ensure solutions meet security, compliance, and regulatory requirements.
Produce and maintain clear architecture documentation, including rationale and trade‑offs.
Continuously evolve platform architecture to improve developer productivity, system reliability, and cost efficiency.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Proven experience taking AI systems from proof‑of‑concept to scaled production use.
Experience defining AI reference architectures and standards for enterprise adoption.
Strong programming background in Python and Java, with the ability to reason at code level.
Proven experience designing and building enterprise‑scale, distributed systems.
Hands‑on experience with cloud‑native architectures, including AWS services, containerization, and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
Deep understanding of data architecture: SQL and NoSQL databases, data warehouses (Snowflake specifically), data modeling, replication, and sharding.
Experience with modern DevOps practices: CI/CD, infrastructure‑as‑code, observability, and automated testing.
Strong API design experience (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), including versioning and documentation.
Ability to evaluate and introduce emerging technologies aligned to business goals.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, dental, and vision benefits*
Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*
401(k) savings plans*
Health Savings Account (HSA)*
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*
Health Lifestyle Programs*
Employee Assistance Program*
Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts*
Career Development*
Incentive bonus*
Disability benefits
Life Insurance
Parental leave
Adoption benefits
Tuition Reimbursement

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

AI systemsPythonJavacloud-native architecturesAWS servicescontainerizationorchestrationSQLNoSQLdata modeling

Soft Skills

architectural guidancementorshipcollaborationcommunicationproblem-solvingleadershiporganizational skillsadaptabilitycritical thinkingstrategic thinking