How to hire a principal architect

How to hire a principal architect, step by step

Here's a step-by-step principal architect hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a principal architect job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new principal architect
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a principal architect do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   The principal architect hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A principal architect's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, principal architects from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   Here's a comparison of principal architect salaries for various roles:

   Type of Principal Architect	Description	Hourly rate
   Principal Architect	Principal Architects manage all design work at an architecture firm. They ensure that all work is of high professional quality and manage the activity of other design professionals.	$46-87
   Architect And Developer	An Architect And Developer is focused on the technical design, architecture, and development of products. They generally work as a part of the development team.	$40-69
   Data Warehouse Architect	Data warehouse architects are in charge of planning data warehouse solutions and function with the standard data warehouse technologies to develop plans that best sustain an organization or business. Typically, data warehouse architects usually take employer goals as well as client demands and work to create a particular architecture that will be sustained to serve certain stated objectives... Show more	$39-70

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Cloud
   • Infrastructure
   • Emerging Technologies
   • Java
   • AWS
   • Python
   • API
   • Azure
   • Analytics
   • JavaScript
   • C++
   • Pre Sales
   • Amazon Web Services
   • Cloud Computing

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage and review Hadoop log files.
   • Manage integrated ERP projects for manufacturing plants
   • Design and implement a Java base reverse proxy that manage application routes.
   • Lead architecture development for a CRM web collaboration product and a CRM multi-media/multi-channel integration product.
   • Manage offshore engineering team, overcoming challenges including technical, resource planning & motivation, communication, and infrastructure.
   • Design and develop the rich desktop web client using ExtJS, a JavaScript framework with an extensive library of UI components.

   More principal architect duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your principal architect job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A principal architect salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

   For example, the average salary for a principal architect in Kentucky may be lower than in California, and an entry-level principal architect usually earns less than a senior-level principal architect. Additionally, a principal architect with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

   Average principal architect salary

   $133,276yearly

   $64.08 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level principal architect salary

   $97,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 18, 2025

   Average principal architect salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$176,236	$85
   2	Washington	$160,261	$77
   3	Nevada	$151,524	$73
   4	Oregon	$137,137	$66
   5	Massachusetts	$135,162	$65
   6	New York	$132,826	$64
   7	North Dakota	$131,812	$63
   8	Maryland	$128,435	$62
   9	Virginia	$127,587	$61
   10	New Jersey	$127,434	$61
   11	Mississippi	$125,683	$60
   12	Arizona	$124,421	$60
   13	Texas	$122,803	$59
   14	Pennsylvania	$122,514	$59
   15	Rhode Island	$122,411	$59
   16	Utah	$120,112	$58
   17	Michigan	$118,407	$57
   18	New Hampshire	$118,085	$57
   19	North Carolina	$117,653	$57
   20	Illinois	$116,249	$56

   Average principal architect salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Google	$213,880	$102.83	67
   2	PayPal	$191,192	$91.92	12
   3	NVIDIA	$190,486	$91.58	206
   4	Dotdash	$185,300	$89.09
   5	McKinsey & Company Inc	$185,003	$88.94	10
   6	World Fuel Services	$181,874	$87.44
   7	Adobe	$180,374	$86.72	48
   8	Safeway	$179,837	$86.46
   9	First Republic Bank	$178,439	$85.79
   10	Automation Anywhere	$178,379	$85.76	1
   11	Microsoft	$177,294	$85.24	523
   12	SiFive	$176,332	$84.78
   13	Cloudian	$174,713	$84.00
   14	Sony Interactive Entertainment America	$174,445	$83.87
   15	Whitepages	$173,428	$83.38
   16	Intuit	$172,606	$82.98	73
   17	Citi	$171,575	$82.49	8
   18	Nike	$171,248	$82.33	24
   19	DocuSign	$170,497	$81.97	5
   20	New Relic	$170,422	$81.93	6

4. Writing a principal architect job description

   A principal architect job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a principal architect job description:

   Principal architect job description example

   The Customer Outcomes Principal Platform Architect is an advisory role, responsible for helping our customers establish a strong technical foundation in the ServiceNow Platform and define related solutions that drive business outcomes. This entails establishing and supporting leading practices around instance strategy, technical governance, core data, integrations and the overall health of the platform. This is a highly consultative role that does not perform configuration on the platform, and instead guides both partner and customer resources to deliver utilizing leading practices. This role interfaces with the customer across executive, platform owner, enterprise architects and development teams during the selling, structuring, implementation, and on-going maintenance of solutions.
   
   An ideal candidate will have a achieved a senior level position as an enterprise architect and have a successful track record in management consulting, (professional services firms or cloud software company), focused on technology strategy, governance, data and solution design. The candidate will have demonstrated the ability to become a trusted advisor to senior executives and facilitate customer success from strategic planning functions including business value identification, road mapping, as well as advising and defining successful execution strategies including governance frameworks and managing large enterprise programs.
   What you get to do in this role:
   
   Develop strong relationships with c-suite and business leaders to understand their vision and how ServiceNow plays in their digital transformation journey.
   
   Translate business objectives to outcomes into a customer roadmap.
   
   Interact with customer's Architecture team to:
   
   Analyze and translate business information and technical requirements into an architectural blueprint that outlines solutions to achieve complex business objectives
   
   Engage with customer enterprise and solution architects to position ServiceNow as the integrated digital transformation platform.
   
   Establish and continually advise on technical governance domains and continual process improvement
   
   Drive solid platform health by reviewing and guiding the remediation of configurations and customizations that do not align to ServiceNow leading practices
   
   Work with clients and ServiceNow teams to establish technical governance to enable successful go-lives, end-user adoption and on-going support
   
   Advocate/champion ServiceNow's advisory services leading practices and industry use cases with clients
   
   Contribute thought leadership (methodology and white papers) on how advisory and co-delivery can optimize customer outcomes
   
   Guide a customer on strategic planning to achieve desired business outcomes.
   
   Identify solutions across the platform that drive towards the customers goals.
   
   Collaborate with broader ServiceNow team structures including sales, pre-sales consulting, expert services, and support.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right principal architect for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   To find principal architect candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit principal architects, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   If your interviews with principal architect applicants aren't enough to make a decision, you should also consider including a test project. These are often the best, most straightforward, and least bias-prone ways of determining who will likely succeed in the role. If you don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new principal architect

   Once you've decided on a perfect principal architect candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new principal architect. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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