Principal Engineer / Architect – Fraud Prevention Technology

Asterism IT Solutions•Malvern, PA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Engineer / Architect to define and deliver the next generation of fraud prevention technology for a large financial services organization. This is a senior-manager-equivalent individual contributor position with no direct reports. The ideal candidate will bring a strong background in banking, payments, financial services, fraud prevention, or related technology, along with proven experience defining technical strategy and architecting large-scale distributed systems. The role will have significant visibility and influence as the organization expands into new financial products, including debit card and payment offerings. You will help establish the future-state fraud prevention platform while continuing to strengthen existing fraud capabilities.

Requirements

12+ years of software engineering / technology experience.
5+ years of experience in fraud prevention, payments, banking, financial services, or closely related technology.
Strong understanding of payment networks, transaction processing, authorization systems, transaction monitoring, or identity verification.
Proven experience architecting distributed, scalable, low-latency systems.
Experience working within a regulated financial services environment.
Strong understanding of AI/ML applications, model integration, intelligent automation, or LLM-augmented engineering practices.
Demonstrated experience operating at Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Architect, or equivalent technical leadership level.
Ability to define technical strategy while remaining comfortable working with engineering teams and technology.
Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.
Experience collaborating with product, risk, compliance, and data science organizations.
Knowledge of applicable financial industry standards and regulations, including PCI-DSS, BSA/AML, Reg E, and payment network rules.

Nice To Haves

Experience with a large bank, asset manager, fintech, payments company, or other financial institution.
Experience supporting or launching debit card, payments, or financial product platforms.
Experience with real-time streaming technologies such as Kafka and Flink.
Experience with fraud decisioning engines and real-time risk scoring.
Background in fraud ring detection, adversarial modeling, or advanced fraud analytics.
Experience with AWS and modern cloud-based architectures.
Experience with JavaScript or other mainstream programming languages.
Strong understanding of machine learning and AI-driven fraud prevention.

Responsibilities

Define the technical vision, architecture, and multi-year roadmap for fraud prevention platforms.
Architect and deliver real-time detection, decisioning, and response systems at enterprise scale.
Design solutions to address emerging fraud vectors associated with payments and debit card products.
Translate fraud strategy and business requirements into scalable technology architecture.
Partner with product, risk, compliance, engineering, and data science teams.
Drive adoption of AI/ML and intelligent automation within fraud prevention and engineering workflows.
Provide technical leadership for new product launches and emerging fraud risks.
Remain hands-on with system design, architecture, technical reviews, and production engineering when needed.
Establish engineering standards and best practices across fraud technology.
Mentor and influence engineering teams without direct management responsibility.
Evaluate emerging technologies and determine their applicability to fraud prevention.
Help develop and execute a long-term technology strategy supporting business growth.