How to hire a software architect

How to hire a software architect, step by step

Here's a step-by-step software 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 software architect job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new software architect
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a software architect do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the software architect you need to hire. Certain software architect roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

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

   Yes

   No

   A software architect's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, software 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.

   The following list breaks down different types of software architects and their corresponding salaries.

   Type of Software Architect	Description	Hourly rate
   Software Architect	Software developers are the creative minds behind computer programs. Some develop the applications that allow people to do specific tasks on a computer or another device... Show more	$39-75
   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
   Principal Software Engineer	A Principal Software Engineer is responsible for the technical aspects of an organization's projects. They diagnose, document, and troubleshoot systems to resolve problems identified through testing, as well as implement strategies to improve integration and efficiency.	$47-87

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Java
   • Architecture
   • Cloud
   • Software Development
   • Python
   • API
   • Scrum
   • Database
   • AWS
   • JavaScript
   • Saas
   • Design Patterns
   • GIT
   • Linux

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead research and implementation of microservices, AngularJS, and other cutting edgetechnologies.
   • Design and implement ASP.NET web site for support to manage and maintain customer and product information.
   • Manage entire QA process from requirements documentation to final release testing.
   • Convert python scripts written by Quants into C++ and c #code base.
   • Support application engineers for various projects; architecture, but also debugging support for complex issues.
   • Work remotely with offshore Motorola H.264 Decoder team to guide their API development and integrate into player architecture.

   More software architect duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your software architect job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A software architect salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, software architects' average salary in south carolina is 37% less than in california.
   • Seniority. Entry-level software architects earn 48% less than senior-level software architects.
   • Certifications. A software architect with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a software architect's salary.

   Average software architect salary

   $114,406yearly

   $55.00 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level software architect salary

   $82,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 15, 2025

   Average software architect salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$138,001	$66
   2	Washington	$120,474	$58
   3	Arizona	$116,350	$56
   4	Massachusetts	$115,633	$56
   5	New York	$106,640	$51
   6	District of Columbia	$105,543	$51
   7	Pennsylvania	$104,884	$50
   8	Texas	$102,540	$49
   9	Colorado	$102,077	$49
   10	New Jersey	$101,498	$49
   11	Virginia	$101,134	$49
   12	Illinois	$99,066	$48
   13	North Carolina	$97,954	$47
   14	Michigan	$95,439	$46
   15	Ohio	$94,820	$46
   16	Georgia	$91,271	$44
   17	Missouri	$90,733	$44
   18	Florida	$86,706	$42
   19	Arkansas	$84,460	$41
   20	Tennessee	$82,464	$40

   Average software architect salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Aspiration	$181,606	$87.31
   2	PayPal	$176,375	$84.80	25
   3	Microsoft	$173,432	$83.38	890
   4	Apple	$173,113	$83.23	625
   5	Credit Karma	$172,367	$82.87	2
   6	Zoox	$170,121	$81.79	119
   7	Sprinklr	$168,674	$81.09	5
   8	NVIDIA	$167,617	$80.59	385
   9	StumbleUpon	$167,585	$80.57
   10	Pure Storage	$166,678	$80.13	35
   11	The Walt Disney Company	$165,543	$79.59	340
   12	Guild Education	$164,319	$79.00
   13	Angie's List	$164,297	$78.99
   14	Polyvore	$163,419	$78.57
   15	Twilio	$161,497	$77.64	4
   16	ServiceSource	$161,462	$77.63
   17	Amazon	$160,597	$77.21	1,148
   18	Okta	$160,428	$77.13	48
   19	VMware	$160,309	$77.07	1
   20	Brocade Services Corporation	$160,013	$76.93

4. Writing a software architect job description

   A software 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. Below, you can find an example of a software architect job description:

   Software architect job description example

   Minimum qualifications:
   
   + 7 years of experience in consumer electronics/embedded systems design.
   
   + Experience with C or C++.
   
   + Experience with software architecture.
   
   Preferred qualifications:
   
   + 10 years of experience driving ASIC architecture decisions from a software point of view.
   
   + 10 years of software design and development experience for typical software layers found in ASIC: boot, drivers, embedded firmware, libraries, and API for applications.
   
   + Comprehensive knowledge of interaction types between hardware and software for different types of standard hardware blocks, CPU, and accelerators.
   
   Our computational challenges are so big, complex and unique we can't just purchase off-the-shelf hardware, we've got to make it ourselves. Your team designs and builds the hardware, software and networking technologies that power all of Google's services. As a Hardware Engineer, you design and build the systems that are the heart of the world's largest and most powerful computing infrastructure. You develop from the lowest levels of circuit design to large system design and see those systems all the way through to high volume manufacturing. Your work has the potential to shape the machinery that goes into our cutting-edge data centers affecting millions of Google users.
   
   With your technical expertise, you lead projects in multiple areas of expertise (i.e., engineering domains or systems) within a data center facility, including construction and equipment installation/troubleshooting/debugging with vendors.
   
   As a Software Architect, you'll understand software product requirements, use cases, applications, and how they relate to specific hardware blocks or sub-systems. You will represent the software team, working on system architecture definition of hardware blocks with Hardware Architects, and the implementation definition with the Hardware Implementation team. In this role, you will define and/or influence their work with the goal of ensuring fulfillment of software requirements, working towards optimal software programming model and interfaces, discussing hardware/software trade-off solutions, ensuring scalability to future software and applications and backwards compatibility. You will strive to make data-driven decisions adopting and/or developing a modeling platform that will help you side your requests.
   
   Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Our Devices and Services team combines the best of Google AI, Software, and Hardware to create radically helpful experiences for users. We research, design, and develop new technologies and hardware to make our user's interaction with computing faster, seamless, and more powerful. Whether finding new ways to capture and sense the world around us, advancing form factors, or improving interaction methods, the Devices and Services team is making people's lives better through technology.
   
   + Collaborate with stakeholders such as product management, architecture, silicon architecture, silicon implementation, silicon software, and product software engineering to identify user experience characteristics and how they can be mapped onto hardware.
   
   + Understand interactions between hardware components and work towards the definition of architecture and block's interactions design, providing options and/or trade-offs, identifying issues, and driving them to resolution.
   
   + Design architecture and software interfaces that enable a software programming model that can delight our application developers, and allow them to use hardware accelerators seamlessly and timely.
   
   + Design architecture that assures security and privacy of the data for applications that are sensitive to it.
   
   + Adopt and/or develop the software architecture modeling platform to model features requests explicitly, and support their inclusion in the hardware using a data-driven approach about their benefits.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find software architects for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your software architect job on Zippia to find and attract quality software architect candidates.
   • Use niche websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Your first interview with software architect candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of 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.

   While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a software architect applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and 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 software architect

   Once you've selected the best software architect candidate for the job, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, this letter should include details about the benefits and perks you offer the candidate. Ensuring that your offer is competitive is essential, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and you should be open to discussion. After you reach an agreement, the final step is formalizing the agreement with a contract.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is 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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