Python Principal Architect

Role: Python Principal Architect

Location: San Jose, CA

Duration: Contract

Mandatory Skills:

Design end-to-end system architectures:APIs.

Write production-quality code Python, SQL, API services across the full lifecycle:

We are looking for a Principal Architect a deeply technical, hands-on leader who sits at the intersection of Functional requirements, system architecture, and pragmatic implementation. This is not a management role. It is a high-impact individual contributor position for someone who loves writing code, designing systems, and staying ahead of the market curve. You will set the technical direction for our engineering practice, drive architecture decisions from first principles, and act as the team's primary connection to fast-moving developments
You will own how we build Apps not just what we build.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
Architecture & System Design
Design end-to-end system architectures:
APIs.
Define and own technical blueprints for new products and applications from data ingestion and embedding pipelines through to response generation, evaluation, and production monitoring.
Solve hard engineering problems:
Make deliberate, well-documented architecture decisions with clear trade-off analysis (build vs. buy, framework selection, deployment topology).
Hands-On Implementation
Write production-quality code Python, SQL, API services across the full lifecycle:
Build and own reusable, framework-quality components that accelerate team velocity.
Prototype rapidly, validate with real data, and iterate; bring proofs-of-concept to production-grade systems with full observability and evaluation harnesses.
Own CI/CD pipelines, Docker-based deployment, and production telemetry for AI services.
AI Market Intelligence & Technology Strategy
Continuously track and evaluate the AI landscape agentic frameworks (LangGraph,
Google ADK, CrewAI, AutoGen), retrieval methods, fine-tuning techniques, and emerging tooling.
Establish and enforce engineering standards: code review practices, PR templates, testing frameworks, and reusable component libraries that reduce development-to-deployment cycle times.
Serve as the senior technical reviewer for all designs providing deep, opinionated feedback that raises the quality bar across the team.
Pair with engineers on hard problems, conduct design sessions, and create internal reference architectures and runbooks that embed best practices across the team.
Design and run internal AI upskilling to keep the team sharp on production-grade development.
Cross-Functional Technical Partnership
Partner closely with Product, Data Science, and Platform Engineering to align architecture with product direction, data constraints, and infrastructure capabilities.
Communicate complex technical trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders translating architecture decisions into business impact narratives.
Work with compliance and legal teams in regulated environments (financial services, cybersecurity)
and data-handling requirements.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Must-Have Experience
12+ years of hands-on experience in full stack development with significant depth in production system delivery.
Proven track record architecting and shipping Enterprise Grade Applications
Expert-level Python and SQL; fluency with Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Docker, FastAPI, Django, and CI/CD