Senior Principal, Trade & Settlements

The Senior Principal - Trade & Settlements is the senior architecture leader accountable for defining and governing the technology architecture for Settlements Modernization. The role will establish the target-state architecture, transition roadmap and architectural guardrails required to move from a distributed settlement landscape toward an integrated, scalable global settlement ecosystem.

As the modernization matures, the remit will expand from settlement architecture to end-to-end Trade & Settlements architecture, providing architectural direction across trade capture, routing and orchestration, core processing/books and records, market and settlement access, data, reporting, controls, and downstream integrations.

·  Own the target-state architecture for Settlements Modernization, including current-state assessment, transition states, capability decomposition, application dispositioning and convergence roadmap.

·  Provide end-to-end architecture leadership for the strategic settlement platform and its ecosystem, with TCS BaNCS GSP as the future settlement platform and controlled coexistence with legacy capabilities during phased market migration.

·  Translate business, operational, regulatory, resilience and client requirements into architecture principles, reusable patterns, integration contracts and non-functional requirements.

·  Define clear domain boundaries and architecture across trade capture, sanctions and sufficiency checks, FX initiation, settlement processing, market/depository connectivity, reconciliation, exception management and reporting.

·  Drive simplification and rationalization of the Trade & Settlements application landscape, supported by evidence-based capability mapping, interface analysis and disposition decisions.

·  Establish architecture governance for solution designs, APIs/events, data models, security, resilience, observability, cloud adoption and technical debt; ensure design decisions are documented and traceable.

·  Partner with product, engineering, operations, risk, information security, infrastructure, data and enterprise architecture teams to ensure modernization decisions work across technology and the operating model.

·  Own architectural readiness for market and regulatory change, including evolving settlement cycles and depository/market infrastructure transformations.

·  Guide engineering teams through modernization execution. Resolve cross-domain architectural issues, identify dependencies early and provide pragmatic decisions that balance strategic direction with delivery risk.

·  Develop architecture talent and a strong community of practice across Trade & Settlements, raising standards for design quality, documentation and technical decision-making.

·  Evolve into the principal architecture authority for overall Trade & Settlements, ensuring coherent architecture and investment choices across the complete trade lifecycle.

·  A documented and governed target architecture for Settlements Modernization with clear transition states and migration guardrails.

·  Reduced architectural fragmentation through reusable integration, data and platform patterns and explicit application dispositioning.

·  Improved resilience, control transparency, scalability and data availability across settlement processing.

·  A coherent multi-year Trade & Settlements technology roadmap aligned to business capabilities and market change.

·  Faster, higher-quality architecture decisions with clear ownership, design traceability and measurable reduction of avoidable technical complexity.

·  18+ years of Extensive experience in enterprise, solution or domain architecture for complex, regulated financial-services platforms, with substantial hands-on technology leadership experience.

·  Deep knowledge of securities post-trade processing and settlement, including settlement lifecycle concepts, exceptions, reconciliations, market/depository connectivity and global custody operating models.

·  Demonstrated experience leading legacy modernization and platform transformation involving phased migration, coexistence and application rationalization.

·  Strong architecture capability across distributed systems, APIs and event-driven integration, data architecture, cloud/platform engineering, security, resilience, observability and non-functional design.

·  Ability to connect architecture choices to business outcomes, operational risk, client impact and delivery economics; comfortable communicating with engineering teams through executive leadership.

·  Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries without relying solely on direct authority, and to make decisions in complex environments with competing priorities.

·  Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

·  Experience with global custody, asset servicing, broker/dealer, market infrastructure or other high-volume post-trade environments.

·  Exposure to TCS BaNCS or comparable enterprise securities-processing platforms is advantageous.

·  Understanding of settlement market infrastructures and standards such as DTCC, CREST and ISO 20022 is desirable.

·  Experience defining architecture roadmaps across large application estates and governing modernization from current state through target state.

·  Strategic architecture leadership with strong engineering depth.

·  Enterprise thinking and ability to optimize across domains rather than within a single application.

·  Decisive, evidence-based judgment with a strong risk and control mindset.

·  Clear executive communication and ability to simplify complex architecture choices.

·  Strong partnership orientation, technical mentorship and accountability for outcomes.

Salary Range:

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.