Principal Architect - Finance & ERP

When you join MetLife’s Global Technology team, you’ll be part of a forward-thinking group dedicated to shaping the future of digital solutions for customers worldwide. You’ll develop, maintain and support technology applications and delivery, leveraging AI, automation, and contemporary ways of working to enhance experiences and drive business outcomes. Your work will simplify complex processes, improve tech resiliency, and ensure high-performing, seamless solutions that power life’s most important moments. In this dynamic environment, you’ll collaborate with talented peers across teams and functions, expanding your skills in impactful ways. Ready to push boundaries and set new industry standards? Join us and help drive the future of technology forward. The Opportunity MetLife is seeking a Principal Architect – Finance Modernization & ERP Transformation to provide architectural leadership for the Finance Modernization Program, with primary responsibility for the Workday ERP implementation and supporting Finance ecosystem transformation. This architect will serve as the lead architecture partner for the ERP Modernization Program, working closely with Finance stakeholders, ERP delivery teams, Enterprise Architecture, Data & Analytics teams, and governance bodies to define target-state architectures, integration patterns, data strategies, and implementation roadmaps. The ideal candidate combines deep ERP and finance domain expertise with strong architecture leadership, enterprise integration experience, cloud-native architecture knowledge, and hands-on experience with modern data platforms, including Databricks. Key Responsibilities ERP & Finance Modernization Architecture: Serve as the lead architect supporting the Finance Modernization and ERP Transformation Program. Define and maintain target-state and transition-state architectures for Workday Financials and related finance platforms. Drive architectural consistency, standards, and governance across all ERP modernization workstreams. Partner with business and technology leaders to translate strategic objectives into architecture roadmaps and implementation plans. Ensure architecture decisions are documented, reviewed, and approved through established governance processes. Workday Architecture Leadership: Lead architecture design for Workday Financials and associated finance capabilities. Define integration architecture patterns for Workday inbound and outbound integrations. Establish standards for API-based, event-driven, file-based, and middleware integrations. Provide architectural guidance on Workday capabilities, extensibility frameworks, reporting, security, and ecosystem integrations. Evaluate architecture tradeoffs and advise leadership on risks, dependencies, and technical debt. Enterprise Data & Databricks Strategy: Define data architecture patterns supporting finance modernization initiatives. Partner with Enterprise Data, Data Governance, and Analytics teams to establish scalable data solutions. Drive adoption of Databricks as the strategic enterprise data and analytics platform. Define patterns for:Data ingestion Data transformation Data products Data governance Data quality Data lineage AI And Analytics Enablement: Ensure alignment with enterprise data platforms, governance standards, and system-of-record principles. Work with D&A to define finance data product strategy, canonical finance data model, semantic layer, lineage, reconciliation controls, data quality rules, system-of-record boundaries, and reporting transition from PeopleSoft sources to Workday and strategic data platforms. Ensure Databricks usage is aligned to governed finance reporting, analytics, AI enablement, and operational data needs without duplicating Workday transaction-system responsibilities. Integration & Enterprise Architecture: Define integration strategies between Workday, legacy ERP platforms, Enterprise Data Hub, HR, Tax, Treasury, Investments, and downstream reporting solutions. Create reusable reference architectures and integration patterns. Collaborate with Enterprise Architects, Solution Architects, and engineering teams to ensure enterprise alignment. Promote API-first, event-driven, and cloud-native architecture principles. Establish architecture guardrails that reduce duplication and encourage reuse of enterprise capabilities. Architecture Governance: Lead architecture reviews through GARB, FRM ARB, AI ARB, and other governance forums. Develop and maintain ERP architecture patterns, standards, and reference architectures. Ensure solution architecture deliverables satisfy enterprise architecture requirements. Review vendor and implementation partner recommendations and ensure alignment with enterprise standards. Drive continuous improvement of architecture practices, patterns, and governance processes. Ensure architecture supports segregation of duties, least privilege, SOX/financial controls, auditability, sensitive data handling, retention/archival, encryption, monitoring, and third-party risk requirements. Partner with Security, Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and Finance Control teams to validate that Workday and surrounding finance ecosystem changes preserve control effectiveness during transition and after go-live. AI & Modernization: Identify opportunities to leverage AI and automation across Finance and ERP capabilities. Partner with enterprise AI teams to establish responsible AI architecture patterns. Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption strategies aligned with business priorities. Enable AI-powered insights through Workday, Databricks, and enterprise analytics platforms. Drive practical AI adoption across Finance modernization by identifying high-value use cases such as financial close support, financial close acceleration, anomaly detection, intelligent reconciliation, reconciliation assistance, automated controls monitoring, intelligent reporting, forecasting insights, reporting assistance, knowledge management, service operations, and knowledge-assist capabilities. Define responsible AI architecture patterns for Workday, Databricks, and enterprise AI platforms, including data grounding, prompt and output controls, prompt/output management, human-in-the-loop review, human review, model risk, privacy, security, access controls, explainability, auditability, monitoring, measurable value realization, and value measurement. Evaluate Workday-native AI capabilities, AI agents, Databricks AI/ML capabilities, and enterprise GenAI services for fit-for-purpose use within Finance modernization, while preventing fragmented or non-governed AI adoption. Required Qualifications Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical discipline. 10+ years of experience in enterprise application architecture. 5+ years operating as a Principal Architect, Enterprise Architect, or Lead Architect. 8+ years designing and implementing large-scale ERP, Finance, or Corporate Systems solutions. Deep understanding of finance business processes including:General Ledger Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Fixed Assets Financial Reporting Planning and Forecasting Experience leading complex ERP transformation programs. Strong experience designing cloud-native enterprise application architectures. Strong understanding of application, integration, security, and data architecture domains. Experience with Azure Cloud technologies and enterprise integration platforms. Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management skills. Demonstrated ability to evaluate AI/GenAI opportunities within governed enterprise architecture, security, data, and risk frameworks. Preferred Qualifications Experience implementing or architecting Workday Financials. Experience with Workday integration technologies including:Workday Studio EIB Workday Web Services APIs Workday ExtendExperience with modern enterprise data platforms including Databricks. Experience architecting ERP modernization where legacy ERP platforms such as PeopleSoft transition to SaaS ERP platforms such as Workday, including integration remediation, data conversion, reconciliation, reporting migration, cutover, and decommissioning planning.Experience defining enterprise data lakehouse architectures. Experience with data governance technologies such as Unity Catalog, Collibra, and Ataccama. Experience supporting Finance Data Hub, Enterprise Data Hub, or large-scale reporting modernization programs. Insurance or Financial Services industry experience preferred. Experience with Workday AI / platform innovation, enterprise GenAI services, AI governance, ML-enabled analytics, Databricks AI/ML capabilities, agentic workflow patterns, responsible AI controls, and AI value measurement in Finance, HR, or Corporate Systems contexts. Location Expectation: This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office. The expected salary range for this position is $140,000 - $185,000. This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation and stock-based long-term incentives. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms. Benefits We Offer Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more! For more information regarding MetLife’s U.S. benefits, please click here. About MetLife Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World’s 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world’s leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. As part of our New Frontier strategy, MetLife is building an AI-enabled, people-centered future. We’re looking for people who bring curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset as we use AI to enhance how we serve customers, support communities, and evolve the way work gets done. At MetLife, AI is a responsible partner that supports human judgment, creativity, and continuous improvement while helping us build trust, inclusion, and long-term value. Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by our core values - Win Together, Do the Right Thing, Deliver Impact Over Activity, and Think Ahead - we’re inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it’s #AllTogetherPossible. Join us! MetLife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are made without regards to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, genetic information, citizenship status (although applicants and employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States), uniformed service member or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law (“protected characteristics”). <![CDATA[20430 When you join MetLife’s Global Technology team, you’ll be part of a forward-thinking group dedicated to shaping the future of digital solutions for customers worldwide. You’ll develop, maintain and support technology applications and delivery, leveraging AI, automation, and contemporary ways of working to enhance experiences and drive business outcomes. Your work will simplify complex processes, improve tech resiliency, and ensure high-performing, seamless solutions that power life’s most important moments. In this dynamic environment, you’ll collaborate with talented peers across teams and functions, expanding your skills in impactful ways. Ready to push boundaries and set new industry standards? Join us and help drive the future of technology forward. The Opportunity The Technology Product Manager for Workforce Data is accountable for shaping and advancing the product strategy, roadmap, and measurable outcomes for enterprise workforce data capabilities. The role connects workforce needs, user problems, data opportunities, and technology delivery into a clear product direction that improves access to trusted workforce information and enables analytics, reporting, operational processes, and responsible AI use cases. Working across HR, Technology, Data, Architecture, Risk, Privacy, Legal, and delivery partners, this role will lead through influence rather than direct people management. The product manager will define problems and outcomes, make evidence-based priority decisions, align stakeholders around trade-offs, and help multidisciplinary teams deliver scalable data products and platform capabilities. Key Responsibilities Own the Workforce Data product vision, strategy, and multi-horizon roadmap, translating workforce priorities and user needs into clear outcomes, capabilities, sequencing, and investment choices.Lead discovery with workforce stakeholders and data consumers to identify high-value problems, define target users and use cases, test assumptions, and establish measurable product outcomes.Define and manage the product portfolio spanning trusted workforce data, curated data domains, reusable data products, analytical and semantic layers, reporting enablement, archival needs, and AI-ready consumption patterns.Create transparent prioritization and decision frameworks that balance business value, user impact, risk reduction, data quality, regulatory obligations, architectural integrity, operational health, delivery capacity, and cost.Partner with architecture, data engineering, analytics, integration, security, privacy, risk, and platform teams to turn product intent into feasible capabilities, release plans, acceptance criteria, and production-ready outcomes.Establish and maintain a clear product backlog and outcome-based roadmap, ensuring work is sufficiently defined, dependencies are visible, trade-offs are resolved, and teams understand the purpose and expected value of each increment.Drive stakeholder alignment across HR and Technology by communicating product choices, dependencies, risks, readiness, and progress in concise business and technical language appropriate for senior audiences.Define product health and value measures, including adoption, data quality, timeliness, reliability, usability, risk reduction, cycle time, and value realization, and use evidence to refine priorities.Champion workforce data governance, privacy-by-design, security, lineage, access controls, retention, responsible AI, and ethical use of employee data throughout discovery, design, delivery, and operation.Guide change, adoption, and product operating practices by clarifying ownership, decision rights, engagement models, release communications, feedback loops, and ongoing lifecycle management.Serve as a trusted product thought partner and subject-matter leader, bringing strong judgment to ambiguous problems and influencing across organizational boundaries without relying on formal authority. Required Qualifications 7+ years of progressive experience in technology product management, data products, enterprise data platforms, workforce technology, analytics, or a closely related discipline, with experience leading complex products through influence rather than formal authority.Demonstrated ownership of product strategy and roadmaps for enterprise technology or data capabilities, including discovery, prioritization, delivery partnership, adoption, measurement, and lifecycle decisions. Adept at connecting data product investments to measurable outcomes.Strong understanding of modern data product concepts, including source-to-consumption flows, data domains, data quality, metadata, lineage, semantic models, APIs or data services, analytics consumption, and platform thinking.Experience translating complex workforce, HR, regulatory, analytical, or operational needs into user-centered product outcomes and clear delivery requirements.Proven ability to make and communicate difficult trade-offs across value, risk, architecture, cost, time, quality, and stakeholder priorities.Experience partnering effectively with data engineering, architecture, analytics, integration, security, privacy, risk, operations, and business teams in a complex enterprise environment.Ability to define outcome measures and use qualitative and quantitative evidence to assess product value, adoption, health, and areas for improvement.Excellent executive communication, facilitation, negotiation, and influence skills, with the ability to create clarity from ambiguity and build alignment across diverse stakeholders.Working knowledge of Agile and product operating practices, including discovery, backlog management, iterative delivery, planning, dependency management, release readiness, and feedback loops.Bachelor’s degree in technology, data, analytics, business, human resources, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Preferred Qualifications Experience with workforce or HR data, including effective-dated data, organizational structures, worker lifecycle data, historical data, security-sensitive attributes, and downstream reporting or analytics.Experience with Oracle HCM or a comparable enterprise HCM platform and its data, reporting, integration, and security considerations.Exposure to modern cloud data and analytics ecosystems such as Azure, Databricks, SQL, Power BI, data lakes or lake houses, data virtualization, or related platform services.Experience product-managing data modernization, legacy retirement, archival, integration simplification, governed self-service analytics, or enterprise data product adoption.Practical understanding of AI and advanced analytics use cases, AI-ready data, responsible AI controls, and the risks associated with workforce data.Product management, Agile, data management, analytics, cloud, or HR technology certifications. Location Expectation: This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office. The expected salary range for this position is $144,100 - $213,100. This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms. Benefits We Offer Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more! For more information regarding MetLife’s U.S. benefits, please click here. About MetLife Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World’s 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world’s leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. As part of our New Frontier strategy, MetLife is building an AI-enabled, people-centered future. We’re looking for people who bring curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset as we use AI to enhance how we serve customers, support communities, and evolve the way work gets done. At MetLife, AI is a responsible partner that supports human judgment, creativity, and continuous improvement while helping us build trust, inclusion, and long-term value. Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by our core values - Win Together, Do the Right Thing, Deliver Impact Over Activity, and Think Ahead - we’re inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it’s #AllTogetherPossible. Join us! MetLife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are made without regards to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, genetic information, citizenship status (although applicants and employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States), uniformed service member or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law (“protected characteristics”). If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at accommodations@metlife.com. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process. MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liabilities. This posting is for a current vacancy and is anticipated to remain open for at least 45 days from the listed posting date.