Solutions Architect Payment Systems

Brains Workgroup • New York, NY

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Our client, a major bank in New York City, is looking for Senior Solutions Architect - Payment Systems (Director Level). This is a hybrid commute role, requiring 2-3 days per week in the office. The position involves end-to-end architecture, solution design, and technical oversight of payment platforms supporting domestic and cross-border payment capabilities. The role acts as a hands-on technical leader and design authority, collaborating with various teams to deliver secure, scalable, and regulatory-compliant payment solutions. You will work closely with enterprise architects to define target-state architectures, guide implementation teams, and ensure alignment with enterprise standards across high-value, real-time, and batch payment systems. The role demands deep expertise in payment processing architectures, financial messaging standards, and the ability to drive complex initiatives in a regulated environment.

Requirements

• 12+ years of technology experience, with 5+ years in financial services or payments platforms
• Proven experience architecting mission-critical, high-volume, regulated systems
• Strong understanding of payments operations, controls, and regulatory considerations
• Strong experience in enterprise and solution architecture within banking or payments environments
• Hands-on architectural knowledge of: Distributed systems and microservices-based architectures
• Hands-on architectural knowledge of: API-led and event-driven integration patterns
• Hands-on architectural knowledge of: High-availability, multi-region, and fault-tolerant designs
• Deep understanding of: Payment processing lifecycles
• Deep understanding of: Financial messaging standards (e.g., ISO 20022, XML/JSON-based formats)
• Solid background in: Java-based enterprise platforms or equivalent JVM ecosystems
• Solid background in: Relational databases and transactional data models
• Solid background in: Messaging platforms and streaming technologies
• Strong grasp of: Security architecture, authentication, authorization, encryption, and data protection
• Strong grasp of: Regulatory and risk controls relevant to payment systems
• Ability to analyze, document, and communicate complex system interactions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to operate with high autonomy and accountability
• Comfortable working across business, technology, risk, and operations teams
• Strong analytical mindset with a focus on enterprise value, risk stewardship, and long-term sustainability
• Must be authorized to work for ANY employer in US - NO H1 Visa support for this role

Nice To Haves

• Experience with real-time or instant payment platforms
• Exposure to vendor payment engines, clearing systems, or market infrastructures
• Cloud and hybrid architecture experience (AWS, Azure, or private cloud)
• Familiarity with container platforms and orchestration (OpenShift, Kubernetes)
• Knowledge of DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code
• Experience supporting modernization from legacy payment systems to next-generation platforms

Responsibilities

• Own the solution architecture for enterprise payment platforms including high-value payments, real-time payments, clearing, settlement, and reporting systems.
• Translate business requirements into end-to-end technical architectures, covering application, integration, data, infrastructure, and security layers.
• Design solutions aligned with enterprise architecture principles, target-state roadmaps, and regulatory requirements.
• Evaluate trade-offs across scalability, resilience, performance, cost, and delivery timelines.
• Define integration patterns for internal systems, vendor platforms, and external market infrastructures.
• Architect solutions supporting domestic and cross-border payment flows, lifecycle processing, reconciliation, and exception handling.
• Apply strong working knowledge of payment rails, clearing models, and settlement mechanisms.
• Design architectures aligned with financial messaging standards (e.g., ISO 20022, legacy formats).
• Support modernization initiatives including real-time payments, API-led architectures, and event-driven processing.
• Partner with business and operations teams to ensure solutions meet SLA, resiliency, and operational readiness requirements.
• Serve as a design authority throughout project lifecycles, from concept through production deployment.
• Review and approve solution designs, modeling artifacts, and implementation approaches.
• Ensure adherence to architecture standards, security controls, and development best practices.
• Guide and mentor development teams, influencing design decisions rather than managing day-to-day coding.
• Participate in architecture review boards, technology evaluations, and vendor assessments.
• Produce and maintain architecture diagrams, solution blueprints, interface contracts, and design specifications.
• Document current-state and target-state architectures, including transition roadmaps.
• Contribute to enterprise reference architectures, reusable patterns, and design guidelines.
• Ensure architectural artifacts are audit-ready and suitable for regulatory review.
• Partner with delivery teams during build, testing, and deployment phases to ensure architectural integrity.
• Support SIT, UAT, and production readiness reviews, including non-functional testing considerations.
• Provide architectural guidance during production incidents, root-cause analysis, and remediation planning.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, DevOps, and SRE teams on resilience, observability, and performance tuning.

Benefits

• around 20% bonus
• great benefits package

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director