Principal Architect

ACI Worldwide•Norcross, GA

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Principal Architect at ACI, you will shape the architecture of multiple products and platforms, taking on complex technical assignments without obvious solutions and setting direction beyond a single team. You will mentor architects and senior engineers, help align the architecture community around unified enterprise direction, and guide the adoption of cloud-native and AI-enabled practices. The role provides architectural leadership across products, creates and shapes roadmaps spanning product lines, drives architectural standards, and supports product and development leaders through analysis, design reviews, and performance and scalability guidance. It also directs cross-product initiatives, evaluates emerging technologies strategically, advances reuse, and sets standards for AI/ML and cloud-native architecture. Areas of focus include authentication and authorization for non-human payment initiators, safe use of AI coding agents across the software development lifecycle, customer-facing technical strategy, and enterprise architecture alignment.

Requirements

15+ years of related experience, including deep technical product architecture and/or product development experience, architectural modeling (UML or equivalent), and extensive application of design patterns to engineering problems.
Advanced critical-thinking ability and comfort making final decisions on difficult technical trade-offs.
Systems thinking across multiple products, including understanding complexity and risk across product boundaries.
Deep cross-product expertise in SaaS and cloud-native architecture, with decisions proven across multiple teams and products.
A record of turning investigations and curiosity into capabilities that change how multiple teams work.
Exceptional architectural judgment and credibility in making cross-product trade-offs involving cost, security, and regulatory constraints.
Extensive experience architecting secure, multi-cloud solutions at an organizational level.
Deep experience with data architecture, governance, and regulatory reporting design across products.
A strong point of view on enterprise AI/ML architecture grounded in implementation experience.
A point of view on safe AI and agentic tooling in the software development lifecycle and on evolving architectural governance.
Demonstrated experience mentoring and developing architects and senior engineers and aligning technical communities around shared direction.
Outstanding communication skills and credibility with engineering leadership, product leadership, and customers.
Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; employment visa or work permit sponsorship is not offered now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Extensive experience in payments, financial services, or another regulated industry.
A track record of defining or evolving an enterprise-wide reference architecture.
Experience contributing to industry standards bodies, whitepapers, or open-source projects.
Experience selecting, developing, or evaluating technical staff.
Experience running or scaling technical enablement programs such as guilds, workshops, or hackathons across an organization.
Experience with agent-initiated payment protocols or agent identity and consent frameworks, or with cost-aware (FinOps) architecture at scale.
Deep expertise in architecture modeling and governance, including ADRs, architecture models, and fitness-function frameworks across multiple teams.
Deep applied expertise in domain-driven design for cross-system boundary problems at scale.
Cross-product expertise in multi-cloud design and data platform architecture, including data lakes, warehouses, and streaming.
Experience setting AI/ML pipeline architecture standards across multiple product teams, including governance and observability.
Working knowledge of agent-initiated payment protocols, agent identity, consent or mandate verification, and agent-scoped tokenization.
Deep expertise in payment processing standards and flows, including ISO 8583, ISO 20022, card networks, and real-time payment rails.
Recognized expertise in IAM, zero-trust design, and regulatory architecture, including PCI-DSS, SOC 2, GDPR, and regional payment regulations.
Deep expertise in real-time fraud and risk engines, tokenization strategy, and network-level risk scoring across payment flows.
Strong architecture experience from adjacent technology stacks; expertise in ACI's exact technology stack is not required.

Responsibilities

Provide architecture leadership across multiple products or platforms and resolve complex technical assignments.
Mentor and coach architects and senior engineers across the organization, communicating with architecture and engineering audiences.
Provide architectural oversight for new or enhanced products and services, and create or shape roadmaps spanning product lines.
Drive compliance with and evolution of architectural standards across customer and product initiatives.
Support development and product leadership with analysis, design reviews, performance and scalability guidance, and subject-matter expertise.
Plan and direct cross-product initiatives, review scope, plan resource use, and partner with project managers to deliver critical programs.
Research and evaluate emerging technologies, design patterns, and products for potential strategic adoption across ACI's portfolio.
Maintain and leverage cross-product architectural knowledge and promote reuse of techniques and technologies where valuable.
Set standards for AI/ML and cloud-native architecture across multiple product lines.
Define how ACI platforms authenticate and authorize non-human payment initiators and how they relate to emerging agent-initiated payment standards and identity and consent frameworks.
Define safe use of AI coding and development agents across the software development lifecycle, including delegation, human review, and adaptation of architectural governance.
Work directly with customers on innovative ideas and projects, translating their needs into long-term technical strategy.
May select staff, provide input to performance reviews, and contribute to resource planning and capital budget decisions for the architecture function.
Align the broader architecture community on critical directional issues and assist Chief Architects in setting unified enterprise direction.