Principal Software Architect (San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA)

Do you want to empower organizations to build smarter compensation strategies while ensuring fair pay for all employees?

Syndio is a Series C technology company leveraging advanced technology and responsible AI to accelerate decision-making, streamline compliance, and democratize insights for consistent, equitable compensation practices at scale. Backed by $83M in investments from Bessemer Venture Partners, Voyager Capital, and Emerson Collective, we are expanding our team and products to help companies align their rewards strategies with their business goals.

Our customers are our greatest asset. Syndio partners with many of the world’s most recognized and respected enterprises, helping them implement leading-edge compensation solutions with expert guidance. We analyze pay for over 10 million employees across dozens of countries, ensuring fair, defensible rewards that drive better business outcomes.

Join us in our mission to help companies make smarter pay decisions they can trust!

About the role

Syndio is redefining how compensation decisions are made — embedding intelligence, equity, and speed into every step. We are seeking a hands‑on Technology & Product Architect to partner with our engineering teams on converging multiple product swimlanes into a cohesive, scalable, and AI‑native platform that accelerates delivery of customer value.

This is a rare opportunity to shape the architecture of a product at the intersection of AI, compensation intelligence, and compliance, helping us transition from compliance‑led to AI‑native decision platforms . You will guide the journey from “here and now” pragmatic execution to a resilient and extensible long‑term architecture.

Why this job is exciting

• Architect the convergence of disparate systems and swimlanes into a unified, composable powering AI‑native platform.
• Guide technical integration of modern agentic patterns with existing systems, including monolithic legacy services and micro frontends.
• Lead design and application of graph‑based data models and graph databases to power contextual, explainable, and interconnected compensation intelligence workflows.
• Serve as a bridge between present‑day constraints and future‑state goals , helping teams move fast today without sacrificing tomorrow.
• Work with Product leadership to anticipate roadmap needs and ensure platform capabilities scale with Syndio’s product evolution.
• Lead cross‑functional technical design reviews , aligning engineers, product, and design on implementation strategies that balance speed, scalability, and customer value.
• Help shape a headless architecture that powers flexible user experiences , including embeddable workflows across platforms like Slack, Teams, and HRIS tools.
• Provide hands‑on technical leadership — pairing with teams, writing proofs of concept, and refactoring key components when needed.
• Model and promote a crawl‑walk‑run approach , enabling fast iteration and progressive investment in architecture and testing.
• Act as a technical steward and mentor , helping to raise the bar on architectural thinking, system design, and engineering maturity across the org.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear narratives for product, customer success, sales, and leadership.
• Partner with security, data, and AI teams to ensure the platform is scalable, secure, and explainable .
• Define logging, observability, and auditability frameworks across agent workflows to meet EU AI Act and pay transparency compliance requirements.

About You

How We Work

Applicants must currently reside within commuting distance of Seattle, WA or San Francisco, CA. Relocation is not currently offered.

Why you’ll love it here

Role progression :

The Interview Overview :

Below you'll find an outline of the interview plan for our Principal Software Architect position. Please note that this is what we expect the process to look like; we may ask you for supplemental information or require an additional step before making a final decision.

At Syndio, we’re building a diverse team that values candor, curiosity, and community. If you share these values and are interested in joining us, we’d love to talk with you even if you don’t 100% meet the “about you” listed here. We don’t expect anyone to have all the answers, as long as you’re willing to learn and grow with us.

Syndio is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are building an inclusive and collaborative workplace as we grow, and we welcome team members regardless of gender / identity, sexual orientation, race or cultural background, religion, physical disability and age.

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