Principal Architect - Compliance Risk Technology

About This Role

Wells Fargo, one of the world's leading financial institutions, is seeking a Principal Architect to lead the next generation of Compliance Risk Technology architecture across the enterprise. In this role, you will provide architectural leadership and technical direction for modernization initiatives across Employee Compliance, Regulatory Compliance, Surveillance, and the broader Compliance Risk landscape.

Responsibilities

• Act as the architectural authority for Compliance Risk Technology, defining and driving a cohesive target-state architecture across a complex landscape of legacy platforms, vendor solutions, and custom-built systems.
• Provide architectural leadership for modernization and transformation initiatives, ensuring solutions remain regulator-ready, auditable, and defensible.
• Translate complex regulatory and business requirements into clear, actionable architectural designs and multi-year technology roadmaps.
• Design and govern enterprise-scale application and microservices architectures aligned to Compliance Risk domains, including surveillance, investigations, attestations, issues management, and regulatory change.
• Design modern data platforms that enable compliance analytics, reporting, lineage, and auditability, including object-storage-based data lake and lakehouse patterns.
• Integrate structured and unstructured data into unified compliance data assets that support traceability, reproducibility, and evidentiary requirements.
• Architect modern data platforms that enable compliance analytics, reporting, lineage, and auditability, including object-storage-based data lake and lakehouse patterns.
• Design and guide the implementation of AI-enabled architectures, including ML-based risk scoring, alert prioritization, anomaly detection, and NLP-driven regulatory and case analysis.
• Architect intelligent and agentic automation solutions with appropriate human-in-the-loop controls, aligned with Responsible AI and Model Risk Management expectations.
• Establish architecture standards, reference architectures, and guardrails across application, data, AI, integration, security, resiliency, and privacy domains.
• Engage directly with delivery teams by reviewing designs, guiding implementation decisions, and resolving complex architectural trade-offs.
• Partner with leaders across Technology, Risk, Legal, and Compliance to influence investment decisions, platform consolidation efforts, and long-term technology roadmaps.
• Maintain awareness of emerging technologies, industry best practices, and regulatory trends, recommending innovations that enhance operational effectiveness and compliance outcomes.

Requirements

• 7+ years of architecture experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education
• 7+ years of experience as a Principal, Lead, or Enterprise Architect (or equivalent senior engineering leadership role)
• 7+ years of experience in Compliance, Regulatory, Surveillance, Employee Compliance, or Risk Management Technology architecture
• 5+ years of experience with microservices and domain-driven architecture approaches
• 5+ years of experience architecting modern data platforms, including object storage and open technologies
• 5+ years of experience designing API-first and event-driven integration patterns
• 3+ years of experience designing and delivering AI/ML and NLP-based solutions in regulated compliance, risk, or financial environments

Qualifications

• Ability to operate with executive presence while remaining hands-on where it matters
• Bias toward simplification, reuse, and platform-based thinking
• Willingness to challenge legacy patterns to drive durable, compliant, long-term outcomes
• Proven ability to synthesize complex ecosystems into rationalized, target-state architectures
• Demonstrated success modernizing large, fragmented technology estates into integrated platforms
• Experience supporting regulatory remediation programs, consent orders, or sustained examination cycles
• Experience architecting platforms across first-line, second-line, and audit use cases
• Strong understanding of enterprise data governance and model risk management frameworks
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence engineers, risk partners, and executive stakeholders

Pay Range

$159,000.00 - $305,000.00

Benefits

• Health benefits
• 401(k) Plan
• Paid time off
• Disability benefits
• Life insurance, critical illness insurance, and accident insurance
• Parental leave
• Critical caregiving leave
• Discounts and savings
• Commuter benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• Scholarships for dependent children
• Adoption reimbursement

Job Expectations

• Ability to work onsite at one of the posted locations
• Willingness to travel up to 10% of the time
• Partner with senior technical and business leaders to drive modernization, simplification, and target-state strategies, including detailed, hands-on architectures and prototypes

References

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