Principal, SW Development Architect

Summary: We are seeking an enthusiastic and skilled Principal Software Architect to join our team developing state of the art test & measurement products. The candidate will hold a visible technical role in a dynamic, multi-tasking work environment, responsible for software and solution architecture across one or more hardware and software products. This role requires strong technical skills and the ability to collaborate across teams and locations. The successful candidate must demonstrate solid architecture design capabilities, clear communication, and a willingness to contribute to team growth and process improvement. Duties & Responsibilities: VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions for telecommunications, cloud, enterprises, first responders, military, aerospace, and railway. VIAVI is also a leader in light management technologies for 3D sensing, anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, government and aerospace applications. We are the people behind the products that help keep the world connected at home, school, work, at play, and everywhere in between. VIAVI employees are passionate about supporting customer success and we welcome people who bring their best every day to the company – to question, to collaborate and to push for solutions that will delight our customers. Justification Recruiting for a Principal Architect for the Cyber flood and OneLab Pro products. Networking protocol experience in L0-L7 applications is required. Previous experience with competitive tools would be a significant plus. We are seeking an enthusiastic and skilled Principal Software Architect to join our team developing state of the art test & measurement products. The candidate will hold a visible technical role in a dynamic, multi-tasking work environment, responsible for software and solution architecture across one or more hardware and software products. This role requires strong technical skills and the ability to collaborate across teams and locations. The successful candidate must demonstrate solid architecture design capabilities, clear communication, and a willingness to contribute to team growth and process improvement. Responsibilities Contribute to key product decisions related to software architecture and specific product features. Collaborate with cross-functional teams (engineering, marketing, operations) to help achieve business unit goals. Participate in the full software development lifecycle, from design through delivery. Contribute to architecture roadmaps and help improve development processes in partnership with senior architects and leads. Support the product and technology roadmap by staying current with industry trends and identifying technical gaps that may impact delivery. Support the "One-Team" initiative by adopting and promoting common tools and processes across R&D locations. Provide technical mentorship to other engineers and software leads to improve cross-site development capabilities. Assist in evaluating technical trade offs and contribute to risk assessments to guide informed decision-making. Work effectively under ambiguity, contributing to team execution while architectural details continue to evolve. Required Qualifications Education and General Experience BSCS / BSCE or equivalent experience (required); advanced engineering degree (preferred) Five or more years of systems architecture and/or engineering leadership experience and 10+ years of hands-on software development experience. High-Speed Ethernet & Application Protocol Domain Experience Solid understanding of L0-L7 Ethernet (both unframed and protocol-based traffic) Experience with stateless and stateful traffic protocols Experience optimizing performance of various networking and transport protocol architecture, including QUIC/HTTP3, IPSec and TLS/PQC Solid understanding and experience with DPDK, Linux drivers and various commercial network interface cards Good understanding of Routing and Switching protocols. Experience with application and testing of Ethernet standards (IEEE, RFC, etc.) Familiarity with L2-3 Ethernet and L4-7 application performance characteristics and KPIs Experience with high-speed Optical Ethernet (100G, 400G, 800G) Understanding of HW and SW acceleration technologies, including experience working with commercial security and network offloads/accelerators Experience with container and virtualization platform design and deployments (Kubernetes, Docker, KVM/QEMU, SRIOV, and PCI-Passthrough across both bare-metal and cloud-native) Programming and Development Experience Proficient with C, C++, and Python programming languages Experience with relational database queries and schema design Familiarity with large-scale databases (SQL, NoSQL, Geospatial) Network communication protocol experience Experience with Linux profiling and tracing tools Software Development Environment and Methodology Understanding of software development lifecycle models Working knowledge of Agile (SAFe, SCRUM) and traditional project management practices Familiarity with standard SW development tools (version control, debuggers, issue tracking, review and collaboration tools etc.) System Architecture and Design OO design methodology experience Experience contributing to enterprise-level solution architectures Familiarity with distributed systems and microservice patterns Organization and Communication Experience collaborating with in-house and distributed development teams Strong interpersonal skills including mentoring and team collaboration Ability to quickly learn and adapt to new technologies Strong analytical and problem-solving skills Good oral and written communication skills, with ability to present technical status to leads and management Ability to work across sites, time zones, and cultures Additional Consideration Experience programming and/or interfacing with FPGAs is a plus Exposure to telecommunications technologies and trends Experience with modern microservice architectures Relevant Cloud computing experience AI/ML experience would be an advantage, including experience with CCL/NCCL, UEC, as well as scale-up/scale-out and inference network architectures Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements: