Principal Architect

Help shape how over 200,000 employees connect, collaborate, and work in the digital workplace of the future.

Wells Fargo is seeking a visionary Principal Architect to lead the technology strategy and architectural direction of our enterprise collaboration ecosystem, one of the most critical technology domains powering productivity, communication, and innovation across the company. This is a rare opportunity to influence the future of workplace technology at scale, driving modernization efforts that impact every line of business and thousands of users across the organization.

As a trusted advisor to senior technology and business leaders, you will play a pivotal role in defining the target-state architecture for a complex portfolio of collaboration platforms and services. You'll partner with executives, product leaders, engineers, cybersecurity, risk, and enterprise architecture teams to guide strategic investments, accelerate transformation initiatives, strengthen resiliency, and shape the next generation of digital workplace experiences.

If you're energized by solving enterprise-scale challenges, influencing technology strategy, and leaving a lasting architectural footprint across a global organization, this role offers the visibility, scope, and impact to do exactly that.

From Microsoft 365 and enterprise messaging to AI-enabled productivity, unified communications, content collaboration, and workplace modernization, you'll help define what collaboration looks like for the future of Wells Fargo.

In this role, you will:

• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior and executive leadership—developing architectural frameworks and providing vision, direction, and domain expertise—for highly complex business and technical needs across multiple groups and the enterprise.

• Lead architecture strategy, governance, and the resolution of highly complex, unique challenges across the enterprise collaboration domain, delivering long-term, large-scale solutions that require vision, creativity, innovation, and advanced analytical and inductive thinking. 

• Provide vision and direction on the transformation strategy, defining current-state, target-state, and transition architectures for enterprise collaboration and workplace technologies.

• Develop and influence strategic plans, investment planning, software renewal reviews, product rationalization, and cutover strategies—driving target investments while rationalizing spend, total cost of ownership, and return on investment.

• Provide architectural leadership and oversight for collaboration products and modernization initiatives—including data center migration, containerization, platform and communication modernization, regulated messaging, and AI-enabled workplace capabilities—spanning the productivity suite, email, messaging automation, digital workflow, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, voice, video, tenant management, content collaboration, and enterprise search.

• Partner across product, engineering, operations, risk, compliance, cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, business, and vendor stakeholders to deliver secure, scalable, resilient, and compliant collaboration solutions, including regulated messaging, communications retention, and data protection.

• Ensure applications and architecture decisions adhere to Wells Fargo standards, policies, methodologies, risk expectations, industry best practices, and enterprise architecture direction as the environment transforms toward target-state architecture.

• Drive the definition, selection, and adoption of strategic tools, architecture frameworks, and patterns that reduce complexity and toil, improve colleague experience, and strengthen resiliency, security, compliance, and operational sustainability.

• Maintain knowledge of industry best practices and emerging technologies, recommending innovations that enhance operations, address risk, and provide a competitive advantage, and influencing internal and vendor roadmaps in a significant capacity.

• Engage vendors and internal platform owners to clarify requirements, assess product direction, influence roadmaps, and ensure enterprise needs are represented.

• Produce, review, and maintain architecture roadmaps, specifications, capability models, artifacts, and decision records—ensuring documentation quality, architectural accuracy, and alignment to enterprise standards.

• Provide clear written and verbal communication to executive stakeholders, architecture forums, delivery teams, governance bodies, and cross-functional partners.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of architecture experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education.

• 5+ years of experience architecting Microsoft 365 collaboration services, including Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Power Platform, at enterprise scale.

Desired Qualifications:

• Deep architecture experience with enterprise collaboration and workplace platforms, including hands-on experience with Microsoft 365 (Teams, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Power Platform).

• 3+ years of experience in tenant management, enterprise search, and productivity-suite administration across a large Microsoft 365 environment.

• 3+ years of experience architecting unified communications and real-time collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, voice, and video.

• 3+ years of experience with regulated messaging, communications retention, and archiving/compliance capabilities for corporate collaboration channels.

• Experience developing current-state, target-state, and transition architectures and executable roadmaps for complex enterprise domains, including platform modernization, complex migration planning, and large-scale transformation.

• Experience in a regulated financial services environment with a strong understanding of risk, compliance, cybersecurity, and resiliency.

• Ability to evaluate technical trade-offs, architecture patterns, product fit, platform strategy, integration complexity, and non-functional and lifecycle impacts.

• Ability to influence at all levels and communicate complex architecture concepts clearly to senior leadership, technical teams, and non-technical stakeholders.

• Experience informing platform strategy and investment decisions through vendor evaluation, industry benchmarking, and financial analysis (e.g., total cost of ownership, ROI, and spend rationalization).

• Experience with architecture frameworks, modeling standards, and toolsets (ArchiMate preferred), with a track record of mentoring and developing other architects and engineers.

Job Expectations and Core Values:

• Be Humble: You're smart yet always interested in learning from others.

• Work Transparently: You always deal in an honest, direct, and transparent way.

• Take Ownership: You embrace responsibility and find joy in having the answers.

• Learn More: You regularly self-educate and improve your skill set.

• Show Gratitude: You show appreciation and respect to those you work with.

Hybrid Work Schedule, 3 days a week in office.

Posting End Date:

*Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

We Value Equal Opportunity

Wells Fargo is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Employees support our focus on building strong customer relationships balanced with a strong risk mitigating and compliance-driven culture which firmly establishes those disciplines as critical to the success of our customers and company. They are accountable for execution of all applicable risk programs (Credit, Market, Financial Crimes, Operational, Regulatory Compliance), which includes effectively following and adhering to applicable Wells Fargo policies and procedures, appropriately fulfilling risk and compliance obligations, timely and effective escalation and remediation of issues, and making sound risk decisions. There is emphasis on proactive monitoring, governance, risk identification and escalation, as well as making sound risk decisions commensurate with the business unit’s risk appetite and all risk and compliance program requirements.

Candidates applying to job openings posted in Canada: Applications for employment are encouraged from all qualified candidates, including women, persons with disabilities, aboriginal peoples and visible minorities. Accommodation for applicants with disabilities is available upon request in connection with the recruitment process.

Applicants with Disabilities

To request a medical accommodation during the application or interview process, visit Disability Inclusion at Wells Fargo.

Drug and Alcohol Policy

Wells Fargo maintains a drug free workplace.  Please see our Drug and Alcohol Policy to learn more.

Wells Fargo Recruitment and Hiring Requirements:

a. Third-Party recordings are prohibited unless authorized by Wells Fargo.

b. Wells Fargo requires you to directly represent your own experiences during the recruiting and hiring process.