Director, Engineering

• Solution Architecture

Position Summary

Natera is at the forefront of personalized genetic testing, transforming the management of disease worldwide. As we scale our life-saving diagnostics, we are transforming our approach to the development of complex software solutions.

We are seeking a visionary & decisive Director of Engineering, Solution Architecture to lead the technical strategy for our core "Pillar" projects. You will be a technical strategist who combines deep architectural expertise with high-agency execution. You will not just design solutions; you will define the rigorous**"Plan of Record"**—the architectural blueprints and reusable frameworks that guide our engineering teams.

In this role, you will lead a team of "Active Architects" who serve as the Technical Quarterbacks for our most complex initiatives. You will champion the design of intelligent, cloud-native systems that balance speed and flexibility with the non-negotiable requirements of architectural robustness, observability, and regulatory compliance.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Define the Technical Vision: Lead the creation of comprehensive architectural strategies and blueprints that align with long-term business goals. You are responsible for the**"Plan of Record"**—the single source of truth that defines how business requirements convert into scalable software.

• Architectural Governance: Drive governance by setting standards, conducting deep-dive reviews, and managing technical risk across projects. Establish loops to detect "Architectural Drift" and take decisive action to correct code that deviates from the design or update the designs.

• Platform Evolution: Design and evolve cloud-native systems with a relentless focus on scalability, security, and observability. Create reusable frameworks that guide teams in building high-performance services.

Product Execution

• The "Technical Quarterback": Partner with Digital Product Managers and Product Integration Leads in a "Three-in-a-Box" model. You own the "How," guiding solution design, decomposition, and critical trade-off decisions.

• Contract-First Design: Go beyond high-level diagrams. Explicitly define or facilitate integration specifications, API contracts (OpenAPI/Swagger), and event schemas (Kafka) to ensure robust interoperability between components.

• Hands-on Guidance: Work closely with engineering teams to troubleshoot technical roadblocks and ensure the "Sample-to-Report" lifecycle is robustly implemented.

Modernization & AI-Native Innovation

• Lead Modernization: Drive initiatives to migrate from monolithic legacy systems to service-oriented, event-driven architectures. Design strategies to safely encapsulate legacy logic using Anti-Corruption Layers.

• AI-Native Leverage: Pioneer the use of AI to revolutionize architecture. Use LLMs to map legacy codebases, generate specs, and identify refactoring opportunities. Partner with AI/ML teams to ensure the scalable integration of intelligent services.

Team Building & Culture

• Cultivate Excellence: Mentor senior engineers and architects, cultivating a culture of system thinking and technical excellence.

• Build a "T-Shaped" Team: Recruit and lead a team of architects who combine broad system views with deep technical specializations. Foster a culture where architects are expected to read code, dive into repositories, and own the success of the build.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 6+ years in a senior architectural leadership role designing enterprise-scale systems.

• Deep Architectural Mastery: Proven success with architectural transformation initiatives, including service decomposition, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and platform re-architecture.

• Cloud-Native Expertise: Deep experience designing systems in AWS, with a strong understanding of architectural trade-offs (performance vs. cost vs. resilience).

• Hands-On Engineering Background: Strong background in coding (Java, Python, etc.). You must be able to read code to understand the truth of the system.

• AI-Native Mindset: Demonstrated experience using LLMs (GPT-4, Claude, Copilot) to accelerate technical tasks and document systems.

• Regulated Industry Experience: Familiarity with Health Tech, Med Tech, or Fintech environments where rigor is required.

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• High Agency: You embrace tough problems. You don't wait for permission to fix broken processes; you find the people, solve the issue, and document the decision.

• Strategic & Tactical: You can explain the 3-year roadmap to executives and the JSON schema validation error to engineers in the same hour.

• The "Plan of Record" Discipline: You possess an innate drive to keep documentation and reality in sync. You hate ambiguity and work tirelessly to remove it.

• Decisive Collaboration: You can drive consensus among engineering leads but are willing to provide the tie-breaking vote based on data and long-term system health.

Compensation & Total Rewards

This range reflects a good-faith estimate of the base pay we reasonably expect to offer at the time of hire. Final compensation will vary based on experience, qualifications, and internal equity considerations.

This position is also eligible for additional compensation and benefits through Natera’s robust Total Rewards program, including:

• Annual performance incentive bonus

• Long-term equity awards

• Comprehensive health benefits (medical, dental, vision)

• 401(k) with company match

• Generous paid time off and company holidays

• Additional wellness and work-life benefits

Compensation Range:

$220,300—$275,400 USD

OUR OPPORTUNITY

Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.

The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Competitive Benefits
• Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program!

For more information, visit www.natera.com.

Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.

*If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents. *

Link: https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents/

Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @natera.com email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes.

For more information:

• BBB announcement on job scams
• FBI Cyber Crime resource page