Would you enjoy working with the world's most distributed platform for cloud computing, security, and content delivery?
Are you interested in designing platform architectures for cloud computing infrastructure and platform services?
Come join our Cloud Technology Group!
Akamai's Cloud Technology Group (CTG) takes ownership for designing, building, maintaining and operating our global Cloud and CDN platforms. We develop and deploy critical technologies that provide the technical underpinnings for all of Akamai's products. The CTO's team ensures consistent security, reliability and availability for our customers.
Partner with the best
You will lead the evolution of Akamai's cloud infrastructure and platform services by driving key initiatives across multiple engineering teams. In this role, you will design foundational solutions that directly power and support all of Akamai's future cloud products.
As a Principal Architect on the CTO's team of our global cloud platform, you will be responsible for:
- Identifying critical improvements for inclusion in the cloud platform roadmap
- Collaborating with solution-specific architects across engineering to define architectures that lead toward a unified cloud platform vision
- Socializing and building consensus around long-term technical strategy decisions across product lines and teams to advance our cloud platform vision
- Engaging with both external partners and stakeholders across the company to achieve our platform evolution goals
- Working with counterparts in engineering to ensure that our cloud platform architecture aligns well with other product goals
- Providing leadership through both high-level guidance and hands-on design as needed to execute against our cloud platform roadmap.
Do what you love
To be successful in this role you will:
- Have 12 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree or its equivalent
- Demonstrate extensive experience developing and documenting architectures for large-scale distributed systems
- Have solid experience with high availability software systems and methods for achieving service security, reliability and operability objectives
- Possess working knowledge of Internet protocols (routing, TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, etc.) and computer security (TLS, PKI, VPN, etc.)
- Possess expertise in cloud workload management (for containers, VMs, etc.) and control plane paradigms (push, pull, segmentation, reconciliation, etc)
- Have an extensive understanding of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS with experience in one or more public cloud offerings
- Demonstrate experience evaluating and justifying technology choices
- Have experience modernizing and refactoring system designs to bring systems into alignment with enterprise-grade scalability, reliability, and observability
About us
At Akamai, we make life better for billions of people, trillions of times a day.
Whether you're streaming live events, scrolling social media, watching your favorite series, or managing your savings, we're the engine behind the scenes. We provide the world's most distributed platform from Cloud to Edge to help the giants of the digital world work faster and stay more secure, making the internet a better experience for everyone.
Our focus is simple:
Cloud and Edge: Running apps closer to users for instant performance.
Security: Neutralizing threats before they ever reach your data.
Content Delivery: Scaling the world's biggest moments without a glitch.
AI: Enabling our customers to build, secure, and scale AI apps on the world's most distributed cloud platform.
At Akamai, we don't just support the internet; we power and protect it, because behind every great digital experience is a massive hidden challenge. And we're the ones who solve it. When millions of people hit play or pay, Akamai ensures it just works.
Benefits at Akamai: We support your health, well-being, finances, and life beyond work. See our benefits.
FlexBase adapts to your job's needs
Akamai's FlexBase program is yet another way we show our commitment to providing employees with an exceptional workplace experience. It's not about telling employees where to work; it's about supporting employees to do their best work.
We trust our incredible employees to work in ways that suit them best: at home, in an office, or a combination of both.
Compensation
Akamai is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For US based candidates only - the base salary for this position ranges from $200,000 - $360,000/year; a candidate’s salary is determined by various factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. Compensation for candidates outside the US will vary. The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of annual bonus or incentives, equity awards and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). Akamai provides industry-leading benefits including healthcare, 401K savings plan, company holidays, vacation (in the form of PTO), sick time, family friendly benefits including parental leave and an employee assistance program including a focus on mental and financial wellness; Eligibility requirements apply.
Skills Required
- 12 years of relevant experience
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent
- Extensive experience developing and documenting architectures for large-scale distributed systems
- Experience with high-availability software systems and methods for achieving security, reliability, and operability objectives
- Working knowledge of Internet protocols including routing, TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP
- Working knowledge of computer security technologies including TLS, PKI, and VPN
- Expertise in cloud workload management for containers and virtual machines
- Expertise in cloud control plane paradigms including push, pull, segmentation, and reconciliation
- Extensive understanding of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS
- Experience with one or more public cloud offerings
- Experience evaluating and justifying technology choices
- Experience modernizing and refactoring system designs for enterprise-grade scalability, reliability, and observability
Akamai Technologies Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Akamai Technologies and has not been reviewed or approved by Akamai Technologies.
-
Leave & Time Off Breadth — Unlimited PTO in the U.S., wellness days, paid volunteering time, and the FlexBase model contribute to broad time‑off flexibility. These practices are described as supporting strong work‑life balance.
-
Parental & Family Support — Generous paid parental leaves, paid family care leave, subsidized backup childcare, and inclusive family‑building benefits via Carrot form a comprehensive family support suite. Coverage spans fertility support through caregiving resources.
-
Retirement Support — A 401(k) with a substantial company match and immediate vesting, plus Roth and Mega Backdoor Roth options, underpin long‑term savings. These features provide reliable long‑term savings opportunities.
Akamai Technologies Insights
What We Do
At Akamai, we make life better for billions of people, billions of times a day. Every moment, billions of people, all over the world, are using the internet to shop, play games, look after finances, learn remotely, share videos, connect across the world, and so much more. These life-shaping digital experiences wouldn’t be possible without Akamai. We power and protect life online. It’s an extraordinary mission, and our global teams achieve it by solving the toughest challenges, and turning the impossible into the possible. With the world’s most distributed compute platform — from cloud to edge — we make it easy for businesses to develop and run applications, while we keep experiences closer to users and threats farther away. That’s why innovative companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences. Thanks to our world’s most distributed platform for cloud computing, security, and content delivery. Akamai keeps applications and experiences closer and threats farther away. Devoted, determined problem-solvers who share a passion for technology, we’re always pushing ground-breaking ideas and driving innovation. Do you want to power and protect life online, by solving the toughest challenges with us? Be part of an amazing team!
Why Work With Us
Our people are devoted, determined problem-solvers who share a passion for technology. We find solutions through persistence, and push ground-breaking ideas forward with urgency and courage. This creates an environment where we harness creative energy and drive innovation. We are inclusive and diverse, and we love to collaborate across the world.
Gallery








