We're seeking an experienced Solution Architect to own the technical design of our platform solutions and drive architectural decisions from concept through delivery. You'll be the primary technical authority for complex implementation challenges - shaping modernization strategies, leading AI adoption, and ensuring engineering teams execute against cohesive solution designs. This is a highly collaborative role where you'll guide teams, influence direction, and occasionally get hands-on to prove out patterns, all within a regulated financial services environment. New Role - The recruiting efforts for this position are intended to fill an existing vacancy for a new position. Responsibilities Define and own solution architecture - transform strategic vision into actionable solution designs, establish reusable patterns, and resolve complex design and feasibility challenges Lead technical decision-making - facilitate solution discussions, perform root cause analyses, and drive consensus across product, SRE, DBA, and engineering teams (~80% collaboration, <20% hands-on coding) Architect for modernization and integration - design end-to-end solutions for migration, system retirement, and distributed system interoperability, managing dependencies across products and teams Champion automation and delivery excellence - define solution standards for CI/CD, automated testing, and performance engineering to meet or exceed SLOs Drive innovation and technology evaluation - lead proof-of-concepts, technical spikes, and emerging technology research (including AI) to assess solution fit for business needs Elevate technical maturity - mentor and coach senior engineers, enforce code governance and documentation standards, and review solution-impacting features to raise the bar across the organization Requirements 8+ years of enterprise software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in an architectural or senior technical leadership capacity Strong architecture-level proficiency in Java, Kafka, and event-driven systems, with experience designing solutions on Azure cloud (other cloud platforms acceptable) Deep knowledge of SQL and NoSQL databases (Postgres, Oracle, MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB, etc.) and proven ability to architect high-availability, distributed production systems Familiarity with WebLogic and legacy middleware; understanding of mainframe systems (integration, migration, or modernization) is a strong plus Experience leading AI adoption - evaluating and embedding AI/ML capabilities into solution designs and engineering workflows Demonstrated ability to lead engineers architecturally, drive cross-functional collaboration, and make trade-off decisions in regulated environments (investment/banking preferred)