Solutions Architect, Principal - Digital Workplace

Requisition ID # 171360 

Job Category: Information Technology 

Job Level: Manager/Principal

Business Unit: Information Technology

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland

Department Overview

PG&E’s Information Technology (IT) organization delivers secure, reliable, and high-quality‑ technology solutions that support business operations and coworker productivity.

The Digital Workplace team shapes and operates the technology experiences coworkers rely on every day. This includes office and field devices, collaboration and productivity tools, applications, endpoint management solutions, and IT support services that enable secure, efficient work across corporate, field, and hybrid environments.

Digital Workplace focuses on how technology is experienced—from device reliability and application performance to collaboration and accessibility—ensuring technology enables productivity rather than creating friction.

Executive Summary
This is a highly technical, execution focused architecture role within PG&E’s Digital Workplace organization. The Principal Solutions Architect is expected to bring prior hands-on experience building and supporting IT systems, apply sound technical judgment, and translate architectural direction into scalable, affordable, supportable solutions that improve coworker experience across office, field, and hybrid environments.

Position Summary

The Digital Workplace team is seeking a Principal Solutions Architect to own the end‑to‑end solution design, technical quality, and operational integrity of Digital Workplace technologies that directly impact coworker productivity and experience.

This role is intended for a deeply technical, execution‑oriented architect with prior hands‑on experience building, supporting, and operating IT systems. The Principal Solutions Architect translates architectural direction into practical, scalable, and supportable solutions grounded in real‑world operational constraints, and serves as a primary technical decision authority for complex initiatives.

Operating autonomously across multiple high‑impact efforts, this role partners closely with engineering and operations teams to ensure solutions meet functional, non‑functional, and operational requirements while delivering a consistent, secure, and high‑quality digital coworker experience.

The ideal candidate is passionate about how coworkers experience technology and takes strong ownership for improving reliability, usability, and effectiveness through sound technical judgment and delivery results.

PG&E is providing the full salary/pay range for this position.  The actual amount paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, internal equity,specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, and geographic location.  The range to reasonably expect will be around the minimum and the midpoint $155,000 - $210,000.  The final decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to the factors above. This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs. 

Bay Area Min: $ 155,000

Bay Area Max: $ 265,000

This position is hybrid, working from your remote office at our Oakland Headquarters based on business need. The assigned work location will be within the PG&E Service Territory.

Job Responsibilities

Solution Design & Technical Quality

• Own the end-to-end technical quality of Digital Workplace solutions across complex, high impact initiatives, ensuring strong coworker experience, scalability, reliability, security, and supportability.
• Partner with project, product, engineering, and operations teams to drive solution architecture from design planning through implementation.
• Produce and provide final technical sign‑off on architecture deliverables in accordance with PG&E IT methodology.
• Make architectural decisions grounded in Enterprise Strategy & Architecture and guiding principles leveraging prior hands-on experience building, integrating, or supporting enterprise IT systems.

Operational Technology Focus

• Design solutions with strong consideration for operational readiness, including monitoring, support models, lifecycle management, incident response, and performance.
• Proactively identify, assess, and mitigate solution level risks, including technical ‑debt, operational risk, and total cost of ownership.
• Act as the primary technical decision authority for complex Digital Workplace initiatives, resolving trade‑offs aligned with standards, risk posture, and operational outcomes.
• Apply enterprise and domain standards consistently to ensure governance and compliance.
  
  
  
  Portfolio & Roadmap Contribution
• Contribute execution driven insights to Digital Workplace planning and ‑road mapping‑ activities (3–7‑year cycles), including delivery constraints, dependencies, and risk signals.
• Inform prioritization and sequencing decisions using solution level‑ cost, risk, and total cost of ownership considerations.

Governance & Architecture Practice

• Participate in architecture governance forums and design reviews as defined by the PG&E Architecture Practice.
• Develop engineers and product teams by raising technical decision quality, architectural thinking, and system-level understanding through guidance, coaching, and mentorship.

Stakeholder Partnership & Communication

• Collaborate with Digital Workplace teams, Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, and business partners to deliver cohesive, standards-based‑ solutions.
• Influence senior leadership decisions through technical judgment, data driven‑ analysis, and clear tradeoff recommendations in alignment with enterprise strategy‑.

Qualifications  

Minimum:  

• BA/BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10 years of experience in IT, including hands-on‑ technical experience in roles such as software development, infrastructure engineering, security engineering, or systems operations.
• 7 years of solution architecture experience, including system design, trade‑off analysis, technical decision‑making, and risk evaluation aligned with enterprise standards and operational constraints.

Desired:  

• Demonstrated experience designing, building, evaluating, and supporting enterprise‑scale IT systems in production environments, including regulated and large‑scale enterprises.
• Experience supporting Digital Workplace technologies, including endpoint devices, collaboration platforms, identity and access management, virtualization, and endpoint services.
• Strong understanding of dependencies between networking, security, cloud infrastructure, and end-user technologies
• Understanding of how Digital Workplace technologies align with business goals, balancing long-term strategy with ‑near-term‑ execution.
• Experience contributing to portfolio planning and road mapping activities (3–7 year‑ ‑horizons).
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft 365, endpoint management solutions, virtualization platforms, and monitoring tools.
• Experience partnering with operations and support teams to improve reliability, observability, and adoption outcomes.
• Experience in the utility or critical infrastructure industry.