Principal Architect

Description The Principal Architect is a senior technical contributor responsible for defining and driving architectural strategy that aligns technical solutions with customer outcomes across HBS’s diverse customer base. This role balances presales leadership, technical enablement, and project delivery oversight to create scalable, customer outcomes, with a sales driven focus.

As a technical overlay, the Principal Architect partners closely with sales teams to develop tailored solution designs and proposals, enabling growth through strategic customer engagement and vendor alignment. They also provide leadership to Engineering teams by mentoring engineers, closing skill gaps, and ensuring consistent delivery excellence on complex projects where they may serve as the Project Lead Engineer (PLE).

In addition, the Principal Architect contributes to the development and maintenance of company-wide architectures, technical standards, and presales tools, fostering consistency, innovation, and operational efficiency across all business units. This position requires strong collaboration across sales, engineering, and vendor teams to deliver world-class solutions that span multiple disciplines and industries, from on-premises environments to the cloud.

The Principal Architect will collaborate with customers and internal teams to design innovative technology solutions tailored to customer business needs, focusing on delivering measurable customer outcomes. This role requires translating technical capabilities into strategic solutions that drive value and support long-term success.

The ultimate goal is to align with regional engineering and sales leadership to drive service revenue for their respective regions across all business units. Drive the value of HBS through service attachment and adoption. This will occur through the alignment with customers and in partnership with the primary engineers aligned to those accounts.

Roles and Responsibilities/ Essential Functions:

Customer Engagement & Presales:

• Lead all presales efforts across assigned region(s), market(s), or technologies as a technical overlay, aligning with regional targets.
• Collaborate with sales teams to create solution designs, technical roadmaps, and proposals aligned to customer needs.
• Deliver technical presentations, demos, and workshops as the technical face of the organization in presales engagements.
• Mentor account teams on technical strategy and assist sales leadership with presales enablement initiatives.
• Partner with preferred and supported vendors to drive solution adoption and support vendor-specific goals.
• Ensure timely, high-quality turnaround of bills of materials, scopes of work, and other sales-related deliverables in alignment with established SLAs.

Project Leadership & Execution:

• Serve as Project Lead Engineer (PLE) on select large-scale and complex engagements, providing technical leadership and architectural oversight.
• Guide Engineering teams during delivery to ensure architectural integrity, quality standards, and alignment to the sold solution.
• Partner with Project Management as needed to support technical planning, risk identification, and solution clarification, without assuming project management or status reporting responsibilities.

Standards Development & Reference Architectures:

• Define, maintain, and evolve reference architectures that standardize solution design, enable repeatable presales execution, and support scalable delivery across regions.
• Partner with sales, engineering, and vendor teams to align reference architectures with supported technologies, customer use cases, and go-to-market priorities.
• Translate reference architectures into presales enablement assets, technical playbooks, and delivery guidance that promote consistency, efficiency, and quality outcomes.

Communication & Collaboration:

• Work collaboratively within regional and cross-regional practices, maintaining alignment to utilization and growth goals.
• Provide leadership and guidance to Engineering teams to ensure effective project delivery and customer outcomes.

Professional Development & Expertise:

• Maintain current industry and vendor-specific certifications and stay informed on emerging solutions for both presales and delivery impact.
• Pursue continuous growth in alignment with the Engineering skills matrix, enhancing expertise in project leadership, certifications, and technical capabilities.
• Grow your sales acumen through continued education focused on specific sales trainings and strategies.

Other Duties and Responsibilities:

• Mentor and develop engineers through our accelerated mentorship program to strengthen regional presales and delivery capabilities.
• Assist with vendor relation requirements for preferred and supported vendors.
• Deliver presales enablement workshops and engineering training on emerging technologies.
• Work with Engineering leadership to identify and close skills gaps impacting presales and project success.
• Collaborate with Sales leadership on technical strategy alignment and presales training programs.
• Complete overview training of each business unit to ensure cross-functional technical awareness.

Time Allocation & Accountability:

• Alignment to regional utilization and growth targets as assigned by the Director of Presales Engineering.
• Drive services revenue targets through assigned region, in partnership with sales.
• Contribute to regional and company-wide sales growth by driving strong services attachment, solution adoption, and expansion opportunities across all regions.

Requirements

How to qualify:

• 6+ years in a technical related field
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience
• Possess at least one expert-level certification, or the ability to obtain it within 12 months. If the manufacturer does not offer an expert-level certification, an alternative requirement is three professional-level certifications.
• Certifications must be from a Preferred or Supported Vendor.
• Experience designing, architecting and implementing complicated technology solutions
• Experience developing and implementing best practice guidelines and solutions across multiple technologies
• Possess at least one professional-level and one associate level certification in two different cloud solutions, or the ability to obtain it within 12 months.
• Certifications must be from Azure, AWS, or GCP
• Maintain an outcome focused mindset
• Have strong prioritization skills
• Always be a team player
• Carry a professional attitude and respectful demeanor

Why HBS? Heartland Business Systems is one of THE LARGEST technology VARs or Value-Added Resellers in the Midwest. Anything that happens with computers – we do it! We PRIDE ourselves on our Core Values of: Performance – HBS is driven to achieve exceptional results in all aspects of our business. Respect – HBS Team Members demonstrate personal integrity and professionalism when dealing with all internal and external contacts. Innovation – HBS is passionate to serve our internal and external customers with innovative solutions to enhance their success. Development – HBS is committed to developing ourselves and each other in ways that support and improve the performance of ourselves and our business. Excellence – HBS takes great pride in all we do and strive for excellence always.

What you can expect from HBS:

• Competitive Compensation Package (May include but not limited to: Bonus, Incentive, Commission, Fair Wage, Retirement Plans, Benefits with HSA Compatible Plans)
• Growth Opportunities
• Community Involvement
• Personal Development
• Employee and Family Celebrations
• Green Initiatives
• Personal Time Off
• Work Life Balance
• Recognition and Awards

Day in and day out, you will be a part of a collaborative, innovative and award-winning team that will make you a better professional. Choose HBS today!

Heartland Business Systems is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Including Disabled and Veterans.