Software Architect

Software Architect

At Autodesk, we are pioneers in 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, building tools that empower some of the most creative minds on the planet to solve real-world problems. Recognized by Fortune, Forbes, Glassdoor, and others as a top place to work, we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where innovation and creativity thrive.

Autodesk's Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Data organization is seeking an experienced Software Architect to join the AEC Data team and define the cloud-native services and distributed-systems architecture that power the AEC Data Model (AECDM) and the many services around it.

Data is the domain, but the role is fundamentally one of cloud and services architecture — APIs, service contracts, integrations, distributed-systems design, and the connected data model that ties them together — spanning multiple teams. It is not a data-warehouse or analytics-specialist role.

The AEC Data organization is building the foundational data infrastructure behind Autodesk's vision for connected construction: the platforms, services, and unified data models that span the entire built-asset lifecycle, from design and construction through operation and maintenance. This work enables the continuous flow of AEC data (3D models, 2D drawings, issue tracking, cost, sensor streams, and more) across Autodesk products and third-party integrations. The architect will help shape the next generation of capabilities for the Autodesk Forma Industry Cloud, collaborating with software architects, domain experts, and product teams across Revit, Civil 3D, AutoCAD, Autodesk Construction Cloud, and Autodesk Forma.

This is a senior individual-contributor role on an established architecture track, reporting to the Distinguished Architect of the AEC Data team, who also serves as the Lead Software Architect. The primary responsibility is to shape how multiple teams design and build — through standards, reference architectures, ADRs, and design-review governance — rather than to own a single service. The exact focus flexes to your strengths and organizational need.

Responsibilities

• API Design & Evolution: Design and evolve API surfaces across the AEC Data services — resource modeling, addressing, versioning and backward-compatible evolution, query APIs, and unifying overlapping surfaces into a single coherent contract.
• System Architecture: Define and evolve cross-team, cloud-native architecture across the AEC Data services; design distributed systems including service contracts and event-driven flows.
• Schema Design & Evolution: Design, document, and evolve data schemas for AEC domain entities (buildings, infrastructure, spaces, systems, components, relationships) — including semantic models, property sets, classification systems, and relationship hierarchies. Own versioning, backward/forward compatibility, deprecation, and migration; maintain the schema registry, validation rules, and quality checks.
• Standards & Governance: Establish standards, reference architectures, and reusable components; author architecture proposals and decision records (ADRs) for review by a cross-org architecture council, and run cross-team design reviews.
• Prototyping & Feasibility: Evaluate alternative architectural directions through modeling and prototyping, de-risking key decisions before broad adoption.
• Mentorship & Technical Leadership: Mentor engineers and fellow architects on emerging and established technologies and on architectural practice; grow technical depth across teams.
• Reliability & Performance: Ensure reliability, security, and performance of systems; define SLOs and drive observability (metrics, tracing, logging).
• Communication: Communicate architecture with clear views and diagrams (e.g., C4) and executive-ready narratives; produce comprehensive documentation and onboarding materials.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years designing cloud-native, distributed systems, including 5+ years at cross-team architect altitude (Software Architect, Principal Engineer, Staff+, or equivalent). Title is flexible; scope of impact is the primary consideration.
• Deep expertise in cloud services (ideally AWS), API/service design, and distributed-systems patterns (microservices, event-driven, resilience).
• Solid grounding in data modeling and schema design — including schema definition languages (e.g., JSON Schema), versioning, and backward/forward-compatibility and evolution strategies — as applied both to standalone data schemas and to API contracts. Specialist data-warehouse or analytics architecture is not required.
• Excellent knowledge of software design and architecture patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and drive alignment across teams outside the candidate's direct management.
• Strong leadership and mentoring skills, with a track record of guiding and growing diverse, cross-functional teams.
• Mastery of conveying complex ideas concisely and persuasively, with excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills across a range of stakeholders.
• Ability to collaborate with a global team.

Preferred Qualifications

Preferred qualifications are a menu rather than a checklist: depth in a few core areas matters more than breadth across all of them. The emerging AI/ML capabilities below are advantageous and can be developed on the job; they are not prerequisites.

Core:

• Cloud Services: AWS and its core services (EC2, ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB, RDS).
• Distributed Systems: Domain-driven service decomposition, data consistency patterns (CQRS, event sourcing, sagas), and multi-tenant/multi-region design.
• API & Service Design: REST API design and evolution; GraphQL (including federation).
• Database Architecture: Relational and NoSQL (e.g., DynamoDB, PostgreSQL).
• Observability/SRE: OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing, metrics/SLOs for data services.

Bonus:

• Semantic Technologies: Knowledge graphs, RDF/OWL, or property graphs — particularly relevant to the connected/semantic AECDM.
• BIM Expertise: Building Information Modeling concepts, Revit families, or similar parametric modeling systems.
• AI Systems: RAG, agents/MCP, agentic orchestration (LangGraph, Semantic Kernel), LLM observability, and data governance / AI safety (PII, prompt-injection, content filtering).
• Domain-Specific AI for AEC: BIM/IFC extraction, CAD or point-cloud processing.
• Event-Driven Architectures: Kafka or Kinesis; schema registries (Confluent, AWS Glue); exactly-once processing.
• AEC Domain Knowledge: Experience in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industry; familiarity with industry standards (IFC, COBie, gbXML, CityGML, LandXML, UniFormat, OmniClass). Domain onboarding is provided.

About the Team

The AEC Data team is building the AEC Data Model (AECDM) to enable better AECO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations) outcomes through more useful, connected, and accessible data. Its scope spans data services and APIs, product and design-tool integrations, and lifecycle/asset data across multiple teams — enabling the seamless flow of information across Autodesk products and third-party integrations so that AEC professionals can make better decisions with better data.

Why Join Us

• Shape the future of AEC data platforms and standards at an industry-leading company.
• Design systems and schemas used by millions of architects, engineers, and construction professionals worldwide.
• Collaborate with world-class software architects and engineers across Autodesk's AEC portfolio.
• Contribute to open standards and interoperability initiatives that benefit the entire industry.
• Join a team that values technical excellence, innovation, and continuous learning.

Learn More

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

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When you're an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk's competitive compensation package. Offers are based on the candidate's experience and geographic location. In