Principal Architect

About Our Company

We’re a diversified financial services leader with more than $1.5 trillion in assets under management, administration and advisement as of year-end 2024. Our team of 22,000 people across 19 countries serves more than 3.5 million individual, small business and institutional clients. We are a longstanding leader in financial planning and advice, a global asset manager, and an insurer. Our unwavering focus on our clients and strong financial foundation connects each of our unique businesses – Ameriprise Financial, Columbia Threadneedle Investments and RiverSource Insurance and Annuities. Here, we foster meaningful careers, invest in the future, and make a difference for clients, institutions and communities around the world.

Responsibilities

• Provide overall direction, mentorship and definition to the organizational architecture to efficiently support the corporate business strategy.
• Interact across multiple business areas, proactively assist in defining the direction for future projects to ensure the success of enterprise-level rollouts.
• Resolve and develop architectural approaches and solutions, conduct business reviews, document current systems and develop recommendations.
• Lead for Cloud Connectivity and Network Security Services.
• Lead projects in Cloud Connectivity and Network Security Services.
• Develop strategy and roadmap, assess the current environment, and influence strategic direction.
• Develop reference architectures and repeatable patterns, establish and manage standards.
• Provide direction to our cloud journey (AWS and Azure).
• Lead complex projects and ensure the success of enterprise-level application rollouts.
• Resolve and develop architectural approaches and solutions by conducting business reviews, detailing current systems, and developing recommendations at the capability level.
• Bring enterprise perspective to all initiatives and ensure projects align with enterprise architecture.
• Lead technology direction within and across infrastructure teams.
• Participate in determination of domain standards, project requirements, and migration plans for infrastructure or business portfolios.
• Develop and ensure compliance with architectural principles and standards for various systems and components.
• Develop and maintain key strategy artifacts.
• Evaluate current architecture and influence strategic direction and roadmaps with proactive feedback.
• Lead analysis of the current technology environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Participate in detailed analysis to align requirements and equipment configurations with defined system specifications.
• Translate customer requirements to process and data requirements.
• Document and support applications and tools consistent with established specifications and business requirements.
• Document all architecture design and analysis work.
• Research, craft and develop product hardware and software interfaces.
• Incorporate architectural principles into enterprise architectural design, including opportunities for common services and service reuse.
• Consult with capability development teams to fit or modify architecture to business objectives.
• Research, introduce and transition new technology into the organization.
• Stay on top of technology advances and issues across all enterprise domains.
• Research, test and recommend tools and practices for potential implementation.
• Provide technical assistance to implementation teams.
• Apply standard methodologies using innovative ideas to increase awareness and efficiency of enterprise architecture.
• Advocate and support the architecture perspective in strategy and delivery discussions with technology and business unit leaders.
• Publish accurate monthly dashboards.
• Encourage, develop and participate in cross-portfolio/capability dialogue.
• Collaborate with business leaders to acquire strategic requirements, colleagues to lead project delivery, vendor partners on product selections, and research partners to understand the industry technology architecture view.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (4-years) in Computer Science, Engineering or related technical field; or related work experience.
• 7-10+ years of relevant work experience required.
• Work experience in multiple technology areas and 2-3 years of relevant enterprise architecture experience in one or more specialty areas.
• Prior experience in design, development and implementation of application development solutions at an enterprise level.
• In-depth knowledge of application, information, infrastructure, network and security architectures.
• Demonstrable understanding of AWS, Azure Cloud, Connectivity and Network Security services.
• Provide architecture direction to our cloud journey - AWS and Azure.
• Strong influencer and leader with vision in their domain area.
• Understanding of application architecture – on-prem, cloud and hybrid.
• Able to collaborate with various cross-functional teams - application, network, security teams at multiple levels to get results.
• Ability to drive architectural discussions, help run POCs, drive decisions and ready to do hands-on work.
• Work with vendors, understand their roadmaps and connect with our strategic direction.
• Solid grasp of AWS, Azure, SaaS or PaaS integration solutions and how those interact with on-premise solutions.
• Deep experience as a senior-level Solutions or Technology Architect working on significant enterprise change initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Financial Services industry-specific knowledge that includes working knowledge of industry data standards and architectures.
• Exposure to working with Oracle Insurance Policy Administration system or Wealth Management Accelerator.
• Domain expertise encompassing Annuities and Insurance business.
• Understanding of Mainframe/COBOL systems.
• AWS integration solutions such as Batch, Glue, Data Pipeline, Kinesis, SNS, SQS, etc.

Pay

The estimated base salary for this role is $140,000 - $190,000 per year. We have a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy. Initial total compensation may vary based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and geographical work location. In addition, most roles are eligible for variable pay in the form of bonus, commissions, and/or long-term incentives depending on the role.

Benefits

• Vacation time
• Sick time
• 401(k)
• Health, dental, and life insurance

Schedule

Full-time, exempt.