Chief Architect

SymphonyAI•New York, NY

31d•Remote

About The Position

We are seeking an exceptional, hands-on Chief Architect to serve as the technical visionary and architectural authority for SymphonyAI's Financial Services business unit. Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, this role will define and govern the end-to-end architecture across all SymphonyAI financial services applications, AI systems, data platform, and cloud infrastructure. The Chief Architect will be responsible for establishing architectural standards, ensuring technical excellence, and driving the evolution of our AI-first platform architecture to deliver market-leading financial risk and compliance management solutions. This is a strategic leadership position that requires deep technical expertise, systems thinking, and the ability to translate complex business requirements into scalable, secure, and compliant architectural solutions. The successful candidate will bridge cutting-edge AI technology with enterprise financial services requirements while ensuring architectural coherence across our entire product portfolio. Experience designing enterprise scale, high volume transaction systems for Tier 1 Banking, Fintech, Payment Providers a plus. Preferred Location - East Coast Based (NY, CT, NJ)

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field; Master's degree strongly preferred
12+ years of progressive technology experience with deep expertise in enterprise software architecture
7+ years in senior architecture roles (Chief Architect, Principal Architect, Enterprise Architect, or equivalent)
5+ years of experience in FinTech, financial services, or payments technology with exposure to financial crime prevention, compliance, or risk management systems
Hands-on experience designing enterprise scale, high volume transaction systems for Tier 1 Banking, Fintech, Payment Providers
Enterprise Architecture Mastery: Deep expertise in enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman), architecture governance models, and large-scale system design patterns
SaaS Architecture: Proven experience designing and scaling multi-tenant SaaS platforms, with specific experience in financial services applications and regulatory compliance requirements
AI/ML Architecture: Extensive knowledge of AI/ML architectures, including deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow), LLM architectures, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) patterns, agentic AI systems, and ML platform engineering
Cloud Architecture Expertise: Expert-level experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), cloud-native architecture patterns, serverless computing, and cloud cost optimization
Data Architecture: Strong expertise in data modeling, data warehousing (Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery), data lakes, real-time streaming (Kafka, Kinesis), and modern data stack architectures
Microservices & APIs: Deep understanding of microservices architectures, RESTful and GraphQL API design, event-driven architectures, and service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd)
DevOps & Infrastructure: Strong knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and GitOps practices
Systems Thinking: Exceptional ability to understand complex interdependencies across business units, platforms, and technologies, and design coherent end-to-end solutions
Strategic Vision: Demonstrated ability to translate business strategy into multi-year technical architecture roadmaps that balance innovation with pragmatism
Technical Communication: Outstanding ability to communicate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, from developers to C-suite executives and board members
Decision Making: Strong analytical and decision-making skills with ability to evaluate trade-offs and make architectural decisions based on multiple variables and constraints
Influence & Collaboration: Proven ability to influence without direct authority, build consensus across distributed teams, and drive architectural standards adoption
Financial Services Expertise: Deep understanding of financial services technology stack including payment processing, transaction monitoring, regulatory reporting, and compliance systems to Tier 1 Banks, Fintechs, etc.
Regulatory Architecture: Experience designing systems that meet regulatory requirements including AML, KYC, sanctions screening, fraud detection, and audit trail requirements
Data Privacy & Security: Expertise in data governance, privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, SOC2), security architecture patterns, and secure data handling in financial services

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with agentic AI architectures, autonomous agent frameworks (LangChain, AutoGen, CrewAI), and multi-agent orchestration patterns
Experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, ChromaDB) and embedding architectures for semantic search and RAG applications
Advanced certifications in cloud platforms (AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, GCP Professional Cloud Architect)
Experience with graph databases (Neo4j, TigerGraph) and knowledge graph architectures for financial services ontologies
Prior experience architecting core banking systems, payment platforms, credit decisioning engines, or fraud detection systems
Background in RegTech or compliance technology architecture with understanding of regulatory technology requirements
Experience with blockchain and cryptocurrency architectures, particularly for transaction monitoring and compliance applications
Familiarity with real-time decisioning architectures and complex event processing (CEP) systems
Experience building and leading distributed architecture teams across onshore and offshore locations
Track record of architecting systems that successfully scaled from startup through enterprise scale
Published thought leadership in architecture, AI, financial technology, or compliance domains through conferences, blogs, or technical papers
Active participation in industry standards bodies, open-source communities, or technology advisory boards

Responsibilities

Enterprise Architecture Vision: Define and maintain the overall architectural vision, strategy, and roadmap for all SymphonyAI financial services applications, ensuring alignment with business objectives and technology strategy set by the CTO
AI-First Architecture: Lead the design and evolution of AI-first system architectures that integrate predictive AI, generative AI, and agentic AI capabilities into financial crime prevention and compliance applications
Platform Architecture Strategy: Drive the architectural evolution from legacy systems to modern cloud-native, multi-tenant SaaS platform architecture, ensuring scalability, performance, security, and regulatory compliance
Technology Standards & Governance: Establish and enforce architectural standards, design patterns, technology selection criteria, and architectural governance processes across all product development initiatives
Innovation & Emerging Technology: Evaluate emerging technologies (including LLMs, agentic AI frameworks, vector databases, and advanced AI/ML platforms) and define strategies for incorporating them into the product architecture
Solution Architecture: Lead the design and review of complex system architectures for high-volume, high-velocity financial transaction processing, real-time risk decisioning, and compliance automation
Multi-Agent Systems Architecture: Design production-ready, multi-agent AI systems that enable orchestrated workflows, autonomous decisioning, and human-in-the-loop capabilities for financial risk and compliance applications
Data Architecture: Define comprehensive data architecture strategies including data modeling, ontology frameworks, data pipelines, data lakes, data warehouses, and real-time data streaming architectures
Integration Architecture: Design API-first integration strategies, microservices architectures, and event-driven patterns to support seamless connectivity with financial institution ecosystems and third-party services
Cloud Infrastructure Architecture: Lead cloud-native architecture design for hybrid and multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), ensuring optimal performance, cost-effectiveness, security, and disaster recovery capabilities
Security Architecture: Collaborate with InfoSec and Compliance teams to ensure all architectural solutions meet stringent regulatory requirements, data privacy standards (GDPR, CCPA, SOC2), and zero-trust security principles
Architecture Review Boards: Establish and lead Architecture Review Board (ARB) processes to evaluate project architectures, ensure compliance with standards, and approve architectural decisions and exceptions
Technical Debt Management: Develop and implement frameworks to assess, score, prioritize, and remediate architectural and technical debt across the enterprise application portfolio
Architecture Assurance: Ensure technical integrity of all designs, identify reusable architectural components, eliminate unnecessary duplication, and maintain architectural consistency across products
Performance & Scalability: Define performance benchmarks, scalability requirements, and optimization strategies to ensure systems meet enterprise-scale deployment requirements
Quality Standards: Establish architecture quality metrics, conduct architectural reviews at key milestones, and ensure adherence to engineering best practices
CTO Partnership: Serve as the CTO's trusted technical advisor and right-hand partner on all architectural matters, translating strategic technology vision into executable architectural blueprints
Engineering Team Collaboration: Partner closely with engineering leaders, development teams, data science teams, and DevOps teams to ensure architectural principles are understood and implemented correctly
Product Management Alignment: Collaborate with Product Management to translate business requirements and feature roadmaps into technical architecture specifications and ensure feasibility of product initiatives
Stakeholder Communication: Communicate complex architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership, engineering teams, and external partners
Architecture Team Leadership: Build and mentor a team of solution architects, data architects, security architects, and infrastructure architects, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning
ML Platform Architecture: Design and oversee scalable machine learning infrastructure that supports model training, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement for real-time transaction monitoring and risk assessment
MLOps Framework: Define MLOps practices, CI/CD pipelines for models, model versioning, model governance, and model observability frameworks
Responsible AI Architecture: Ensure AI architectures incorporate explainability, transparency, fairness, bias detection, and model risk management capabilities to meet regulatory confidence requirements
Ontology & Knowledge Graphs: Lead the design of industry-leading ontology frameworks and knowledge graph architectures for financial services data operations
AI User Experience Architecture: Define architectural patterns for delivering AI-first user experiences across different user personas (investigators, analysts, compliance officers, executives)
Legacy System Migration: Architect phased migration strategies to transition from legacy systems to modern platform architecture while maintaining operational continuity and minimal customer disruption
Microservices Transformation: Lead the decomposition of monolithic applications into microservices architectures with clear service boundaries, API contracts, and dependency management
Containerization & Orchestration: Define container strategies using Docker and Kubernetes, including service mesh architectures, container security, and orchestration patterns
DevOps & CI/CD Architecture: Establish continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline architectures, infrastructure-as-code practices, and automated testing frameworks