Chief Architect

Charles Schwab Inc.•Austin, TX

2d•$285,000 - $350,000•Onsite

About The Position

At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together. We believe in the importance of in-office collaboration and fully intend for the selected candidate for this role to work on site in the specified location(s). Schwab Technology Services enables the future of how clients manage their money by providing innovative and reliable technology products and services as a part of our ongoing commitment to democratize access to investing and financial planning. Our organization, Retail, Bank and Corporate Technology (RBCT) builds and maintains technology solutions that are mission critical, and integral to providing world-class service to our external and internal clients. As the Chief Architect for RBCT, you will provide senior level architecture and technology leadership across a complex portfolio of applications, platforms, and modernization initiatives. In this role, you will shape, communicate, and drive the long-term architectural vision for the RBCT domains that provide cross-enterprise platforms (serves all lines of businesses and channels) while ensuring alignment to Schwab’s broader technology strategy. You will lead enterprise level architectural initiatives, guide modernization efforts, and ensure that all technology decisions support business outcomes, risk expectations, and operational excellence. As a trusted advisor, you will work closely with senior business and technology leaders, offering strategic insight on technological trends, competitive differentiators, and opportunities to innovate. This role represents both a deep technical expert and a broad strategic leader—someone who is the “first among equals” in environments with other Distinguished Engineers, Chief Architects and technical leaders. You will influence decision making beyond organizational boundaries, mentor developing engineers, and create a culture of pragmatic, scalable, and well governed architecture across the RBCT organization.

Requirements

Proven ability to lead complex, large enterprise, architectural initiatives across multiple teams, domains, or business areas.
Expertise in cloud modernization, Java/.Net, SQL and NoSQL DBMS technologies, AI-centric software development, and containerized application hosting platforms.
Strong understanding of technology governance, risk tolerances, exception processes, and compliance requirements.
Executive presence, including the ability and experience to build and deliver presentations, materials, and communication to executive level leadership.
Leadership courage to respectfully challenge decisions when necessary and fully commit once decisions are made.

Responsibilities

Provide senior level architecture and technology leadership across a complex portfolio of applications, platforms, and modernization initiatives.
Shape, communicate, and drive the long-term architectural vision for the RBCT domains that provide cross-enterprise platforms.
Ensure alignment to Schwab’s broader technology strategy.
Lead enterprise level architectural initiatives.
Guide modernization efforts.
Ensure that all technology decisions support business outcomes, risk expectations, and operational excellence.
Offer strategic insight on technological trends, competitive differentiators, and opportunities to innovate.
Influence decision making beyond organizational boundaries.
Mentor developing engineers.
Create a culture of pragmatic, scalable, and well governed architecture across the RBCT organization.
Perform solution architecture for highly complex programs involving multiple systems, emerging technologies, or substantial investment.
Architect systems for availability, disaster recovery, observability, performance, scalability, and incident prevention across mission-critical platforms.
Ensure modernization strategies and blueprints are executed as designed.
Provide feedback and ongoing guidance to fine-tune systems and implementations based on real-world scenarios.
Analyze current vs. target state capability gaps and formulate domain level technology strategies.
Establish and maintain technology blueprints, roadmaps, and a three-year technology strategy.
Evaluate technical debt, modernization tradeoffs, investment sequencing, cost optimization, and business value realization.
Build and lead a community of practice across architects and technical leaders, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and collective ownership of architectural standards.
Create forums and mechanisms that promote teamwork, continuous improvement, and innovation across distributed or matrixed technical teams.
Provide technical leadership across portfolios, strategic programs, and functional domains.
Mediate and escalate design disagreements to drive aligned outcomes.
Define reusable platform capabilities, integration patterns, APIs, event-driven architectures, and shared services that support multiple business domains.
Build and maintain strong business relationships and act as the first point of architectural guidance for the domain.
Build and deliver presentations, materials, and communication to executive level leadership.
Respectfully challenge decisions when necessary and fully commit once decisions are made.