Systems Architect, Instrumentation R&D Lead

At Alcon, we're passionate about enhancing sight and helping people see brilliantly. With more than 25,000 associates, we innovate fearlessly, champion progress, and act swiftly to impact global eye health. We foster an inclusive culture, recognizing your contributions and offering opportunities to grow your career like never before. Together, we make a difference in the lives of our patients and customers. Are you ready to join us?
The Lead Systems Architect is responsible for defining and governing the technical architecture strategy across the Instrumentation R&D portfolio. This leader enables scalable, modular, and reusable products and technologies that accelerate innovation, improve development efficiency, and increase leverage across platforms.

This role is on-site in our Lake Forest, CA location and a typical day would include:

Enterprise Architecture Leadership

• Establish and maintain the Instrumentation R&D architecture strategy, principles, and roadmap.

• Define future-state product and technology architectures across the portfolio.

• Connect business strategy, product roadmaps, technology investments, and architecture priorities.

• Lead architecture reviews and governance for major development programs.

• Serve as the escalation and decision authority for cross-platform architecture matters.

Systems Engineering Excellence

• Establish systems engineering methods, practices, and standards across the organization.

• Drive adoption of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and systems-thinking approaches.

• Develop frameworks for requirements management, functional decomposition, interface management, integration, verification, and validation.

• Improve the consistency and effectiveness of systems engineering across sites and product teams.

• Mentor engineering leaders and practitioners in architecture and systems engineering.

Platform Strategy and Reuse

• Identify and prioritize architecture reuse opportunities across products, programs, and technology platforms.

• Define modular architectures that support scalability, flexibility, serviceability, and future product evolution.

• Establish reusable system building blocks, common interfaces, and reference architectures.

• Balance product-specific requirements with enterprise reuse and lifecycle considerations.

• Track reuse adoption and the value delivered through shared architecture assets.

Cross-Functional Technical Leadership

• Partner with product-platform leaders to ensure architecture supports portfolio and program objectives.
• Facilitate technical trade-off decisions involving performance, risk, cost, schedule, and reuse.

• Resolve architectural conflicts across programs and engineering disciplines.

• Lead architecture forums and technical decision reviews.

Technical Standards and Governance

• Establish architecture standards, decision criteria, and review processes.

• Maintain documentation of architecture decisions, interfaces, and technical rationale.

• Monitor adoption of architectural standards and address justified exceptions.

• Partner with Communities of Practice to translate enterprise architecture into discipline-level methods and standards.

Capability Building

• Assess systems engineering and architecture capability needs across the organization.
• Develop technical talent through coaching, mentoring, and targeted learning.
• Support recruitment and development of systems engineering expertise.
• Build a culture of technical rigor, reuse, and enterprise learning.

What You’ll Bring to Alcon:

• Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school +18 yrs; Assoc.+14 yrs; M.S.+7 yrs; PhD+6 yrs)
• The ability to fluently read, write, understand and communicate in English.
• 10 Years of Relevant Experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15+ years of engineering experience in complex product development environments, including substantial leadership in systems engineering, architecture, platform development, or advanced technology development. 
• Experience in medical devices or another regulated product development environment strongly preferred. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across hardware, software, electronics, firmware, optics, mechanical systems, and system integration boundaries. 
• Experience with systems engineering, MBSE, SysML, requirements management, architecture modeling, interface management, design verification, risk management, and configuration management. 
• undefined

How You Can Thrive at Alcon:

• See your career like never before with focused growth and development opportunities
• Join Alcon’s mission to provide outstanding, innovative products and solutions to improve sight, improve lives, and grow your career!
• Alcon provides a robust benefits package including health, life, retirement, flexible time off and much more.
• Travel  - up to 20% 
• Sponsorship - No
• Relocation - No

Alcon Careers

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Compensation and Benefits

Alcon’s Total Rewards programs are designed to align incentives with business objectives, support our values, and deliver long‑term value. Our compensation approach includes a combination of fixed and variable pay, with short‑term and long‑term incentive opportunities for eligible roles. Our benefits offerings are designed to support associates and their families across key life events, including programs that promote health and well‑being, provide financial security, and support retirement planning.

The salary range posted represents the anticipated hiring range for this role. Actual compensation may vary based on factors such as experience, skills, location, and internal equity, and may fall outside the posted range.

Pay Range

Pay Frequency

Alcon is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participates in E-Verify. Alcon takes pride in maintaining a diverse environment and our policies are not to discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. Alcon is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or in order to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an email to [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.