Locations and Workstyle:
Blue Bell, PA: Primarily remote; candidates should be within commuting distance of the Blue Bell office and able to work onsite as needed. Option to come onsite more frequently if desired.
Irving, TX and Boca Raton, FL: Hybrid schedule - onsite a minimum of four days per week, with one remote day. Five days onsite may be required based on business needs.
About the Role
The Principal Engineer, Platform Systems is a hands-on technical leader on the Product Engineering Architecture team. This role provides design leadership, cross-team technical alignment, and direct implementation support across cloud services, mobile, web, device/firmware, and partner integrations.
The Principal Engineer leads system design for strategic and cross-team programs; produces architectural artifacts and decision records; facilitates architecture reviews; and builds proof-of-concepts and reference implementations in the codebase.
This is not a review-only role. The position takes architectural work currently absorbed informally by senior engineers, shortens the runway on new initiatives, and strengthens continuity for a function that must scale beyond a single architect.
What You'll Do
- Lead architecture for strategic initiatives and cross-team programs across cloud services, mobile, web, device/firmware, and partner integrations.
- Develop architectural artifacts including system designs, standards, decision records (ADRs), and reference architectures that teams can reuse.
- Facilitate architecture reviews and technical alignment across engineering teams; drive clarity on tradeoffs, risks, and decisions.
- Investigate, design, prototype, and evaluate technical feasibility of new approaches; deliver proof-of-concepts and reference implementations.
- Contribute directly to implementation of strategic initiatives when architectural expertise is required to reduce risk or accelerate delivery.
- Partner with engineering leads, product, and program partners to catch cross-team requirements and integration risks early, at intake rather than late in delivery.
- Promote reuse, consistency, and maintainability across the platform; identify and reduce architectural technical debt where it blocks delivery or scalability.
- Reduce architectural workload currently carried by senior engineers on delivery teams by owning design leadership and follow-through on assigned initiatives.
- Mentor engineers on design quality, architectural practice, and technical decision-making; provide constructive feedback in design and code reviews.
- Communicate complex technical information effectively to the right audience through written RFCs/ADRs, diagrams, verbal facilitation, and code as explanation.
- Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces; define clarity and lead through influence in a matrixed organization.
- Perform additional duties as assigned.
What You'll Need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant experience designing systems used across multiple teams or products.
- Proven experience as a hands-on technical lead or architect for cross-team or platform initiatives, including both design leadership and direct contribution.
- Demonstrated expertise building and operating cloud-native and distributed systems, including microservices, APIs, messaging systems, and data stores.
- Experience producing architectural artifacts, including design documents, ADRs, and diagrams, that other engineers successfully execute against.
- Deep experience designing distributed systems and integration architectures, including APIs, event-driven patterns, and partner/platform integrations.
- Hands-on engineering credibility with expertise in at least one production stack (typically backend/cloud services) and the ability to deliver proof-of-concepts outside that stack when needed.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated care for conveying the right information to the right audience.
- Ability to lead through influence rather than authority and partner effectively with engineering leads and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Sound technical judgment across both functional and non-functional requirements, including scalability, reliability, security, operability, and cost.
- Comfortable challenging designs constructively and facilitating disagreement toward clear decisions.
- Effective mentor and coach for engineers on design and architecture practices.
- Thrives in a fast-paced environment with multiple concurrent initiatives and shifting priorities.
Preferred Qualifications
- Strong experience with Java and the Spring ecosystem for backend and cloud services.
- Additional language experience welcome for cross-stack proof-of-concept work, including TypeScript/JavaScript, Kotlin/Swift familiarity, Python, or C/C++ exposure.
- Experience with AWS and/or GCP.
- Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, along with modern CI/CD practices.
- Experience in IoT, security, consumer device platforms, or partner integration ecosystems.
- Familiarity with mobile/backend integration patterns and multi-surface product architectures spanning applications, cloud services, devices, and partner systems.
- Prior experience in a small architecture function partnering closely with delivery teams rather than operating as a pure governance or review board function.
- Exposure to firmware or device constraints, or a willingness to ramp quickly when initiatives span device and cloud environments.
Travel
Occasional travel required, less than 25%.
Compensation & Benefits:
The salary range for this role is $145,600.00 - $218,400.00 and is based on experience and qualifications.
Certain roles are eligible for annual bonus and may include equity. These awards are allocated based on company and individual performance.
We offer employees access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits and paid time off among others. Employees accrue up to 120 hours in their first year. Your accrual rate increases after your first year. We also offer 6 paid holidays.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience.
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including designing systems used across multiple teams or products.
- Proven experience as a hands-on technical lead or architect for cross-team or platform initiatives, including design leadership and direct contribution.
- Expertise building and operating cloud-native and distributed systems, including microservices, APIs, messaging systems, and data stores.
- Experience producing architectural artifacts such as design documents, ADRs, and diagrams that teams execute against.
- Deep experience designing distributed systems and integration architectures, including APIs, event-driven patterns, and partner/platform integrations.
- Hands-on engineering credibility with expertise in at least one production stack (typically backend/cloud services) and ability to deliver proof-of-concepts outside that stack.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to communicate complex technical information to varied audiences.
- Ability to lead through influence, partner with engineering leads and cross-functional stakeholders, and mentor engineers on design and architecture.
- Sound technical judgment across scalability, reliability, security, operability, and cost.
- Experience with Java and the Spring ecosystem for backend and cloud services.
- Experience with TypeScript/JavaScript, Kotlin, Swift, Python, or C/C++ for cross-stack proof-of-concept work.
- Experience with AWS and/or GCP.
- Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes and modern CI/CD practices.
- Experience in IoT, security, consumer device platforms, or partner integration ecosystems.
- Familiarity with mobile/backend integration patterns and multi-surface product architectures spanning applications, cloud services, devices, and partner systems.
- Exposure to firmware or device constraints, or willingness to ramp quickly when initiatives span device and cloud environments.
ADT Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about ADT and has not been reviewed or approved by ADT.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with a per‑paycheck company match and the possibility of an additional year‑end contribution is positioned as competitive. Feedback suggests this is a reliable anchor of total compensation value.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave, adoption/infertility support, and childcare discounts are highlighted as part of the package. Feedback suggests these offerings add meaningful non‑cash value across different employee groups.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Core medical/dental/vision coverage is paired with an EAP, wellbeing programs, and employee discounts, with noted emphasis on mental‑health initiatives. Eligibility beginning the first of the month after 31 days in many roles reinforces accessibility and day‑to‑day usefulness.
ADT Insights
What We Do
ADT is the most trusted brand in smart home and business security. Through innovative products, partnerships and the largest network of smart home security professionals in the United States, we connect and protect what matters most to our customers at home, work and on the go. For more information, visit www.adt.com.







