HARMAN’s engineers and designers are creative, purposeful and agile. As part of this team, you’ll combine your technical expertise with innovative ideas to help drive cutting-edge solutions in the car, enterprise and connected ecosystem. Every day, you will push the boundaries of creative design, and HARMAN is committed to providing you with the opportunities, innovative technologies and resources to build a successful career.

A Career at HARMAN

As a technology leader that is rapidly on the move, HARMAN is filled with people who are focused on making life better. Innovation, inclusivity and teamwork are a part of our DNA. When you add that to the challenges we take on and solve together, you’ll discover that at HARMAN you can grow, make a difference and be proud of the work you do everyday.

Introduction: A Career at HARMAN Automotive

We’re a global, multi-disciplinary team that’s putting the innovative power of technology to work and transforming tomorrow. At HARMAN Automotive, we give you the keys to fast-track your career.

• Engineer audio systems and integrated technology platforms that augment the driving experience
• Combine ingenuity, in-depth research, and a spirit of collaboration with design and engineering excellence
• Advance in-vehicle infotainment, safety, efficiency, and enjoyment

About the Role

• The Chief Architect is responsible for establishing, governing, and sustaining a cohesive end-to-end Software Factory architecture across Ready products, SW domains, Test domains and derived projects.
• This role ensures that all software assets, including architecture, source code, configurations, pipelines, and documentation—are designed, developed, integrated, and deployed through a single mainline (trunk-based development) model.
• The Chief Architect defines and enforces architectural principles, standardized tool chains, and traceability practices, ensuring consistency, scalability, quality, and compliance across the enterprise software ecosystem.
• Role is accountable for delivering an improved DevEx for ~2000 Developers/Testers/Integrators, driving ~20% effort savings and ~USD 25M/annually in cost optimization 
• Global responsibility to mentor Developers/Testers/Integrators across all regions (India, Germany, US, Romania, China & Mexico). 
• Ensure products are built (Product → Project Architecture Alignment) once and safely instantiated into multiple projects without dilution. Define separation between core product assets and project-specific extensions using configuration, feature toggles, and composable architectures.

 Your Team 

• You will lead a team of approximately 2000 Developers/Testers/Integrators with indirect reporting located in India, Germany, US, Romania, China & Mexico regions. 

What You Will Do

Software Factory Architectural Governance

• Define and own the end-to-end Software Factory Reference Architecture covering product-to-project derivation, asset reuse, trunk-based development, CI/CD, testing, release, and deployment. Establish architectural guardrails to prevent branch sprawl, uncontrolled forks, tool fragmentation, and architecture drift.

Trunk-Based Development & Mainline Integrity

• Own and enforce the one-mainline development strategy across product codebases, platform layers, domain components, and project customizations. Ensure continuous integration, short-lived branching where required, and automated quality gates.

Toolchain, Traceability & Asset Management

• Define and govern the standard software factory toolchain covering source control, CI/CD, artifact management, requirements traceability, quality, security, and compliance. Ensure end-to-end traceability from requirements to deployment and field feedback.

Architectural Enablement & Mentoring

• Act as the chief mentor for product, domain, and project architects. Provide guidance, conduct architecture reviews, resolve cross-domain conflicts, and build a strong architecture community aligned with factory principles.

Compliance, Quality & Sustainability

• Ensure the software factory architecture supports functional safety, cybersecurity, reliability, scalable testing, and long-term maintainability. Embed compliance and quality into the delivery flow.

Decision Authority

• Approve or reject architectural approaches that violate factory principles, define mandatory standards, escalate systemic risks, and drive cross-organizational architectural alignment.

What You Need to Be Successful

• Experience: 20+ of experience in large-scale software systems, strong expertise in trunk-based development, CI/CD, modular architectures, and enterprise-scale platforms.
• Expertise in trunk-based development, CI/CD, modular architectures, and cloud-native platforms.
• Strong knowledge of PLM/ALM ecosystems, Agile architecture practices, and DevOps toolchains.
• Proven experience in product line engineering and compliance-driven architecture..

Bonus Points if You Have

Experience with AI-Driven Development

• Knowledge of integrating AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, AI-based test generation) into developer workflows for productivity and quality improvements.
• Cloud-Native Architecture Expertise

Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and GitOps deployment models for scalable CI/CD and test environments.

Deep Automotive Domain Knowledge

• Familiarity with ASPICE, ISO 26262 (Functional Safety), and cybersecurity standards, and ability to embed compliance into automated pipelines.

Product Line Engineering (PLE) Leadership

• Proven track record in implementing modular architectures, variability management, and configuration-driven reuse across multiple product lines.

PLM/ALM Integration Skills

• Experience aligning PLM lifecycle with software workflows and integrating ALM tools  for end-to-end traceability.

Global Transformation Experience

• Leading large-scale engineering transformation programs across geographies, including cultural change and process standardization.

DevEx Enablement

• Understanding of developer experience principles and ability to design architectures that reduce friction and improve flow.

Strong Stakeholder Influence

• Ability to work with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to drive architectural decisions and secure buy-in for strategic initiatives.

What Makes You Eligible

• Willing to travel globally up to 20%.
• Ability to work in a hybrid environment with occasional on-site visits.
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment (post-offer).

• This position requires the use of a HARMAN or customer-owned vehicle. As such, any offer of employment will be contingent upon having a clean driving record, which will be evaluated and determined in HARMAN’s sole discretion, no more than four (4) active points for moving violations (issued by any motor vehicle agency), and no references to operating a vehicle under the influence of controlled substances within the last 10 years.

What We Offer

• Flexible work environment, allowing for full-time remote work globally for positions that can be performed outside a HARMAN or customer location
• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more)
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
• Competitive wellness benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development

#LI-KN1

HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.