Director, Principal Cloud Architect

Charles Schwab Inc.•Southlake, TX

4d•$219,000 - $243,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Principal Cloud Architect will help shape the next generation of enterprise cloud and AI strategy and translate that strategy into secure, resilient, scalable, and reusable solutions. This senior individual-contributor role combines deep cloud architecture expertise with demonstrated experience designing production-grade AI and Enterprise Cloud platforms and solutions. The architect will lead technical workstreams, establish reusable architecture patterns, mentor peers, and drive alignment across engineering, architecture, security, data, risk, and platform teams. The ideal candidate will bring deep experience designing enterprise-scale cloud solutions, with strong architecture depth in GCP and demonstrated ability to operate effectively across AWS and Azure. Success requires strong technical judgment, clear architectural communication, and the ability to translate executive strategy into practical engineering execution in a highly regulated environment.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in technology architecture, including at least 8 years designing enterprise cloud solutions and demonstrated recent experience architecting production AI or generative AI capabilities.
Deep experience creating enterprise architecture designs in GCP or AWS, with GCP strongly preferred, covering compute, networking, identity, data, integration, security, resiliency, observability, and platform operations.
Deep understanding of secure-by-design cloud and AI architecture, including identity, least privilege, network segmentation, encryption, secrets management, logging, threat modeling, software supply-chain controls, and data protection in regulated environments.
Experience establishing and applying Infrastructure as Code and policy-as-code patterns using Terraform or comparable technologies, including modular design, automated validation, security controls, versioning, and lifecycle management.
Working proficiency with source control, CI/CD, artifact management, automated testing, and DevSecOps toolchains. The candidate must understand how architecture controls can be integrated into delivery pipelines.
Experience designing mission-critical platforms with defined availability objectives, failure isolation, disaster recovery, observability, incident-management integration, auditability, and clear operational ownership.
Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering production-grade AI and generative AI solutions, including data ingestion and preparation, model selection and integration, retrieval-augmented generation, agentic workflows, model serving, evaluation, observability, security, governance, and lifecycle management.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex cross-functional architecture decisions, mentor technical professionals, and influence direction across engineering, infrastructure, security, data, risk, operations, and business stakeholders.
Experience driving architecture from concept through implementation in partnership with engineering and platform teams.
Experience working within iterative delivery models and integrating architecture guidance, governance, security, and operational-readiness requirements into continuous delivery practices.
Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cyber Security, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Current advanced certification in GCP, AWS, Azure, security, data, or AI is preferred. Certifications support, but do not replace, demonstrated architecture and production-delivery experience.
Experience in financial services or another highly regulated industry is preferred, particularly where architecture decisions required strong security, privacy, auditability, resiliency, risk-management, and regulatory controls.

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture of secure, resilient, scalable, operable, and maintainable enterprise cloud and AI solutions from strategy and option analysis through production implementation and operational readiness.
Lead complex architecture workstreams, reviews, and governance decisions across architecture, engineering, security, data, risk, infrastructure, and operations, balancing delivery needs with architecture integrity, enterprise standards, and long-term sustainability.
Mentor engineers, architects, and technical leaders, and create reusable guidance that improves cloud and AI architecture quality, technical judgment, design consistency, and organizational capability.
Translate business and technology requirements into reusable cloud and AI architecture patterns, reference designs, decision frameworks, and implementation guidance that reduce duplication, accelerate delivery, and improve security, resiliency, operational consistency, and enterprise scalability.
Ensure cloud and AI solutions align with enterprise architecture, security, data, privacy, compliance, model-risk, resiliency, operational, and governance requirements. Clearly document architecture decisions, alternatives, assumptions, risks, exceptions, mitigations, and ownership.
Communicate effectively with engineers, architects, executives, and governance partners. Translate complex cloud and AI topics, limitations, risks, and tradeoffs into clear decisions, actionable plans, and accountable next steps.
Drive clarity, decisions, and execution in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with evolving requirements, competing priorities, and multiple stakeholders.
Partner with engineering and platform teams to move architecture from concept through implementation, production readiness, and ongoing operational ownership. Validate critical assumptions through proofs of concept, implementation reviews, infrastructure-as-code reviews, and technical evaluation where appropriate.
Bring strong critical thinking, problem-solving ability, and sound technical judgment to complex enterprise challenges.