AD - Enterprise Architecture

Principal Financial Group • Des Moines, IA

9h • Hybrid

About The Position

As an Enterprise Architect in Principal Asset Management, you will connect business strategy, operating models, and technology platforms into a coherent enterprise direction. This role exists to ensure that major investments—across business capabilities, data, applications, and platforms—work together to deliver measurable outcomes. You will operate at the intersection of business architecture and technology architecture, shaping how strategy becomes executable, scalable, and sustainable across the enterprise. This role focuses primarily on middle and back‑office asset management capabilities, where data integrity, operational efficiency, and control are critical to scale, compliance, and client outcomes.

Operating at the intersection of financial services and technology, Principal builds financial tools that help our customers live better lives. We take pride in being a purpose-led firm, motivated by our mission to make financial security accessible to all. Our mission, integrity, and customer focus have made us a trusted leader for more than 140 years.

As Principal continues to modernize its systems, this role will offer you an exciting opportunity to build solutions that will directly impact our long-term strategy and tech stack, all while ensuring that our products are robust, scalable, and secure!

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience, plus 10+ years of experience in a multi-business unit global organization
• Demonstrated ability to operate across business and technology domains, connecting strategy to execution
• Proven experience with business capabilities, value streams, and roadmaps, and how they inform technology decisions
• Exceptional communicator with executive-level influence skills

Nice To Haves

• Expertise in middle‑ and/or back‑office asset management, including investment operations, accounting, performance, risk, data, or regulatory reporting platforms, is strongly preferred
• Familiarity with asset management vendor platforms (e.g., Eagle Accounting, Charles River)

Responsibilities

• Shape Enterprise Direction (Business + Technology)
• Define and evolve enterprise architecture across business, data, application, and technology domains.
• Use business architecture (capabilities, value streams, operating models) to anchor technology decisions in clear outcomes across investment operations, asset servicing, accounting, risk, performance, and data management capabilities.
• Establish principles, standards, and reference architectures that guide both business transformation and technical execution.
• Ensure enterprise architecture enables emerging capabilities (e.g., advanced analytics and AI) through strong business alignment, data foundations, platform coherence, and governance.
• Lead Strategy to Execution
• Serve as lead enterprise architect for large, complex initiatives spanning multiple business units and technology platforms.
• Translate business priorities into integrated target states and roadmaps across capabilities, processes, data, applications, and infrastructure.
• Drive Architecture Decisions & Governance
• Own architectural direction and provide decision support for cross-domain tradeoffs.
• Apply governance with intent—using architecture to accelerate delivery, reduce duplication, and manage risk.
• Ensure investments align to enterprise capabilities, platform strategies, and reuse opportunities.
• Influence and Enable
• Communicate effectively with executives and technical stakeholders to identify business needs, lead architecture reviews and workshops, and translate complex requirements into clear, actionable technology solutions for diverse audiences.
• Coach teams on how to apply enterprise and business architecture in real delivery contexts.
• Build shared understanding across business and technology communities.
• Advance the Architecture Practice
• Strengthen integration between Business Architecture and Technology Architecture practices.
• Drive consistent use of capability models, roadmaps, and architectural patterns.

Benefits

• Flexible Time Off (FTO) is provided to salaried (exempt) employees and provides the opportunity to take time away from the office with pay for vacation, personal or short-term illness.
• Pension Eligible
• Comprehensive, competitive benefit offerings crafted to protect their physical, financial, and social well-being.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: Associate degree