Principal Architect

ACI Worldwide•Norcross, GA

About The Position

As a Principal Architect at ACI, you will shape the architecture of multiple products and platforms, take on highly complex technical assignments, and set direction that extends across teams and product lines. You will mentor architects and senior engineers, help align ACI’s architecture community around unified enterprise direction, and establish standards for cloud-native and AI-enabled practices. The role provides architectural leadership and oversight for new and enhanced products and services; develops roadmaps, standards, and cross-product initiatives; and advises development and product leadership on design, performance, scalability, and technical strategy. It also sets direction for AI/ML, cloud-native architecture, agent-initiated payments, and safe use of AI development agents across the software development lifecycle. The Principal Architect works with customers to translate needs into long-term technical strategy and may contribute to staffing, performance reviews, resource planning, and capital budget decisions. The role calls for broad experience in product architecture, cloud and data architecture, AI/ML, security and compliance, payments, and cross-product technical leadership. ACI welcomes strong architects from adjacent technology stacks; deep expertise in its exact stack is not required. Applicants must be 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.

Requirements

15+ years of related experience, including deep technical product architecture and/or product development experience.
Experience with architectural modeling (UML or equivalent) and extensive application of design patterns to real engineering problems.
Advanced critical-thinking skills and ability to make difficult technical trade-offs.
Systems thinking across multiple products and ability to identify complexity and risk across product boundaries.
Deep cross-product expertise in SaaS and cloud-native architecture, with decisions that have proven effective across multiple teams and products.
Track record of turning technical investigations into capabilities adopted across the organization.
Exceptional architectural judgment and credibility making cross-product decisions 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.
Strong point of view on enterprise AI/ML architecture based on implementation experience.
Point of view on safe use of AI and agentic tools in software development and on adapting architectural governance as agents perform more implementation work.
Demonstrated track record of mentoring and developing architects and senior engineers and aligning technical communities around shared direction.
Outstanding communication skills with engineering leadership, product leadership, and customers.
Currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; the position does not offer employment visa or work permit sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Extensive experience in payments, financial services, or another regulated industry.
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 organization-wide technical enablement programs such as guilds, workshops, or hackathons.
Experience with agent-initiated payment protocols or agent identity and consent frameworks, or with cost-aware (FinOps) architecture at scale.
Recognized expertise producing and reviewing architecture decision records (ADRs), architecture models, and fitness-function frameworks across multiple teams.
Deep applied expertise in domain-driven design for real-time, cross-system boundary problems at scale.
Deep cross-product expertise in multi-cloud design and data platform architecture, including data lakes, warehouses, and streaming.
Experience setting standards for AI/ML pipeline architecture, governance, and observability across multiple product teams.
Working knowledge of agent-initiated payment technologies, including 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.

Responsibilities

Provide architecture leadership across multiple products or platforms and resolve complex technical assignments without obvious solutions.
Mentor and coach architects and senior engineers, and communicate with architecture and engineering audiences to raise the organization’s capabilities.
Provide architectural and big-picture oversight for new or enhanced products and services, and create or shape architecture roadmaps across 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 strategic adoption across ACI’s portfolio.
Promote reuse of architectural techniques and technologies across teams 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 interoperate with emerging agent-initiated payment standards and identity or consent frameworks.
Define safe use of AI coding and development agents across the software development lifecycle, including delegation, human review, and architectural governance.
Work directly with customers on innovative ideas and projects, translating customer needs into long-term technical strategy.
May select staff, provide input to performance reviews, and contribute to architecture-function resource planning and capital budget decisions.
Align the broader architecture community around important directional issues and assist Chief Architects in setting unified enterprise direction.