Principal Architect

Wells Fargo Bank•Charlotte, NC

22h•Onsite

About The Position

Wells Fargo is seeking a Principal Architect within Commercial and Corporate & Investment Banking Technology (CCIBT) to shape architecture strategy and modernization for Global Payments and Liquidity platforms. This senior leadership role defines the technical vision, target-state architecture, and modernization roadmap for critical transaction-processing platforms supporting payments, commercial deposits, treasury services, and customer liquidity management. The Principal Architect provides technical direction to architects and engineers and partners across Product, Engineering, Security, Risk, Operations, and business teams to ensure technology strategy supports client needs and long-term business objectives. The role leads architecture strategy and modernization across Global Payments and Liquidity, including enterprise transformation involving cloud adoption, platform modernization, application rationalization, API enablement, event-driven architectures, and resiliency engineering. It establishes architecture standards, design patterns, reference architectures, and technology frameworks, and ensures solutions align with Wells Fargo standards, security requirements, regulatory obligations, and industry best practices. The position also advances AI, Generative AI, intelligent automation, and analytics adoption, including defining architecture patterns, Responsible AI practices, and enterprise integration approaches. The Principal Architect acts as a strategic technology advisor and recognized architecture authority, influencing senior executives, investment decisions, technology roadmaps, and execution strategies. Success requires balancing strategic thinking with execution, influencing without direct authority, building consensus across organizations, and translating complex business and technology challenges into actionable architectural direction. The position is required to work in the office according to the organization's Return-to-Office policy. Visa sponsorship and relocation assistance are not available.

Requirements

At least 7 years of architecture experience, or equivalent demonstrated through work experience, training, military experience, or education.
At least 7 years of experience developing architecture roadmaps, modernization strategies, and implementation plans aligned to business and technology objectives.
At least 5 years of financial services experience, including exposure to payments processing, treasury services, commercial deposits, liquidity management, or related banking platforms.
At least 1 year of experience in Global Payments and Liquidity domains, such as Wire Transfer, ACH, Real-Time Payments (RTP), ISO 20022, liquidity management, commercial deposits, treasury services, payment orchestration, or related transaction-processing platforms.
Required to work in the office as per the organization's Return-to-Office policy.
Must directly represent their own experiences during the recruiting and hiring process; third-party recordings are prohibited unless authorized by Wells Fargo.

Nice To Haves

Experience partnering with Product Managers and Product Owners to develop product-aligned architectures and technology strategies.
Strong background in transactional systems, resiliency engineering, scalability, security, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence.
Experience leading cloud transformation and modernization initiatives across large enterprise environments.
Experience evaluating and implementing AI, Generative AI, and Agentic AI solutions.
Knowledge of AI governance, Responsible AI practices, model lifecycle management, and enterprise AI architecture patterns.
Strong executive communication, influence, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
Demonstrated ability to lead and influence technology strategy across multiple organizations and architecture domains.
Extensive experience defining target-state architectures, modernization roadmaps, and enterprise technology strategies.
Deep expertise designing and delivering highly available, scalable, secure, and resilient distributed systems.
Experience leading large-scale transformation initiatives involving cloud, platform modernization, APIs, integration platforms, event-driven systems, and modern engineering practices.
Experience influencing senior executives, technology leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders within complex organizations.
Experience translating business strategy, product strategy, and operational objectives into architecture roadmaps.

Responsibilities

Advise senior executives and technology leadership on architecture strategy and delivery of complex business and technology solutions.
Lead the architecture vision, modernization roadmap, and target-state strategy for Global Payments and Liquidity platforms and supporting capabilities.
Drive enterprise transformation initiatives involving private and public cloud adoption, platform modernization, application rationalization, API enablement, event-driven architectures, and resiliency engineering.
Analyze and resolve complex technology challenges through architectural expertise, innovative thinking, and cross-organizational collaboration.
Define current-state, target-state, and transition architectures aligned with long-term business objectives and modernization goals.
Influence strategic planning, investment decisions, technology roadmaps, and execution strategies.
Collaborate with senior business, product, engineering, security, risk, and operations leaders to align technology strategy with business outcomes.
Guide technology investments toward modern platforms and architectural patterns while optimizing total cost of ownership, operational efficiency, and return on investment.
Establish and govern architecture standards, design patterns, reference architectures, and technology frameworks across the portfolio.
Ensure solutions align with Wells Fargo standards, security requirements, regulatory obligations, and industry best practices.
Lead adoption of AI, Generative AI, intelligent automation, and advanced analytics to improve customer experience, operational efficiency, risk management, and developer productivity.
Evaluate and define AI architecture patterns, Responsible AI practices, and enterprise integration approaches for AI-enabled solutions.
Influence enterprise and vendor technology roadmaps and identify emerging technologies with strategic business value.
Mentor and develop architects and engineering leaders, fostering innovation, technical excellence, and continuous modernization.
Define business capability maps, technology enablement strategies, and architecture roadmaps aligned with business objectives and technology investments.
Translate complex business challenges into scalable, resilient, and maintainable technology solutions.
Drive adoption of cloud-native architectures, platform engineering, API-first strategies, event-driven architectures, and engineering best practices.
Champion AI and Generative AI opportunities that improve client experience, operational efficiency, decision-making, risk management, automation, and software delivery productivity.
Promote strategic alignment with business leaders, product teams, engineering organizations, risk management, architecture councils, and enterprise stakeholders.
Follow applicable risk programs, Wells Fargo policies and procedures, and risk and compliance obligations; monitor, govern, identify, escalate, and remediate issues and make sound risk decisions.