Principal Application Architect

At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.

We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Principal-level API Architect to join Charles Schwab’s Application Architecture team. The role will advance Schwab’s API & Service Architecture vision by creating guidance and mechanisms that enable the company to think firm-wide when considering capabilities development. You will work closely with business, product, and technology partners to translate long-term objectives into designs that fuel firm-wide reuse and convergence.

The right individual will be a proactive, self-starter that enjoys and thrives when connecting people and technology to solve complex problems at-scale. You will analyze, model, and develop complex and high-level architecture plans that require the integration of multiple technologies and coordination of functional areas across the organization. If you have a passion and skill for long-term end-to-end thinking balanced with crafting architecture increments that enable value for customers now, this opportunity is for you!

The Cross-Enterprise Architecture team within the Application Architecture organization is responsible for defining the building blocks and target-state cross-enterprise vision that helps Schwab avoid duplication and optimize architecture. We are an organization that values diverse and big thinking, rewards both behaviors and delivery, and focuses on growth and continuous improvement – all in support of Schwab’s mission to help clients and one another succeed.

This role reports up to the Office of the CTO, chartered to establish technology governance, standards, practices, and strategy for the entire firm, enabling thousands of technologists to better serve the millions of Schwab clients and trillions of dollars in client assets. The role requires close collaboration with architects and engineers across the Schwab Technology Services (STS) organization.

• Architecture leaderships skills enabling success in owning architecture and influencing strategic direction and vision for the future.
• Desire and ability to understand diverse business domains and develop architectures that meet the current and anticipated business needs across a broad set of partners.
• Ability to evaluate new technologies and know the latest industry trends.
• Good judgment and the ability to handle high pressure situations.
• Solid communication and presentation skills to deliver innovative ideas to executive leadership for the purposes of alignment and key decision making.
• Connect the dots mentality that drives efficiencies in architectures and processes. 

Required qualifications:

• B.S. / B.A in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or other technology related area of focus is minimally required.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in application architecture, design, and development and hosting complex and highly scalable systems in highly regulated industries (e.g., finance,insurance, healthcare, government).
• 5+ years of experience working effectively at all levels of an organization with the ability to influence others, inspire others and to lead decisions that provide clear positive results to the company.
• 10+ years experience using common Architecture patterns (e.g. microservices, GoF, SOA, Event sourcing, etc.).
• 10+ years experience addressing operational and non-functional concerns (e.g. horizontal & vertical scalability, performance, maintainability, load distribution, resilience, recovery, security and privacy).
• 5+ years experience with cloud technologies and API management, preferably with knowledge of Enterprise API Management platforms.
• 5+ years experience delivering APIs at scale, preferably to cloud platforms.
• 5+ years experience working with the OpenAPI Standard.
• 3+ years experience using DevOps Tools (Github and Github Actions)
• 3+ years experience mitigating OWASP Top 10 API Security Risks using technology products and practices.

Preferred qualifications:

• Master’s or advanced degree or relevant certification.
• Experience in financial, investment management and securities markets.
• Data-driven decision competencies using analytics and insights to inform API and Integration Architecture Strategies (data analysis, charting, visualization, interpretation).
• Knowledge of rate limiting and monitoring tools to gauge API performance.
• Experience with DevPortal technologies to support both external and internal API developer communities.
• Use of AI and LLMs to aide in modeling and management of API design.