Principal Architect - Investment Services

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

USAA is seeking a Principal Technical Architect to lead the technology direction for the Investments Services line of business. The candidate selected for this position will be working as a principal technical architect within USAA’s Architecture and Technology Strategy organization. This team is responsible for researching and ushering the Investments technology stack into the next 100 years of service to USAA members. The selected candidate will be part of a team of highly skilled staff and principal architects who are experts in designing systems and applications utilizing technologies that run the gamut from on-premise mainframe to IaaS/PaaS/SaaS in the cloud. This includes designing core business applications using principles such as app containerization, microservices and event-driven architectures, data/analytics-driven design, secure APIs, and architectural resiliency - all while understanding and designing for the regulatory compliance demands of the retail investments industry. Key projects may include, but are not limited to, core vendor technology acquisition and integration, member experience and process design, fraud guardrails implementation, application future-proofing, and data-centric integration efforts with numerous business and IT stakeholders. Partnering with senior business and technology leaders, you will establish architecture standards and platform roadmaps that accelerate innovation, drive adoption, and deliver business value through technology.

We offer a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Charlotte, NC or Phoenix, AZ. Relocation assistance is available for this position.

What you'll do:

Collaborates with business and IT stakeholders to understand and finalize strategy, requirements, measures, risks and controls across multiple domains considering cross stream impacts.

Utilizes expertise and research to coordinate with domain architects in the creation of technology decisions with relevant architecture artifacts and proactively apply architecture thinking to conceive evolutionary strategies and roadmaps that can accelerate current capabilities across multiple business functions or IT domains.

Cultivates productive and trusted relationships with front line business executives and IT stakeholders, to provide leadership and guidance to influence and shape priority, funding and execution of architecture solutions and direction for multiple domains and/or portfolios.

Executes and assists in review of formal assessment of domain applications in collaboration with business and application owners to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and risks.

Advises executive level business owners of proposed courses of action; Provides assessment summary content to the CTO for presentation to the board.

Defines and documents architecture standards, principles, and policies for and across multiple domains to ensure architectural compliance of technology solutions.

Use risk assessment methodologies to draft/evaluate and approve/reject waivers to architecture standards.

Participates in activities that support the USAA technology ecosystem such as Program Increment planning and assistance in troubleshooting of Availability Command Center incidents to resolve complex production issues related to multiple technology domains.

Provides professional and technical mentorship for experienced architects, engineers and IT community colleagues in an open, respectful, flexible and empathetic manner. Recommends mentoring opportunities specifically to create team redundancy and backfill ability.

Leads the technical design and definition of systems, services, and dataflows across multiple domains and/or portfolios.

Executes architecture practices and processes by ensuring timely completion of deliverables, driving and sponsoring enhancements.

Maintains external relationships with contacts on industry organizations and government boards and vendors in the marketplace related to a business function or technology domain.

Achieves one or more of the following external eminence activities: obtaining professional and industry technical certifications, presenting at conferences, publishing technical papers, contributing to open source, authoring patents, etc.

Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

What you have:

• •Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• •10 years of experience in Information Technology field including 4 years hands-on development of architecture and design for large scale enterprise applications.
• •Extensive experience in technology application development and operational implementation.
• •Deep understanding and application of technical architecture standards, principles, and policies and extensive knowledge of applicable regulations and risk management practices.
• •Deep knowledge and experience architecting and designing technology solutions that enable brokerage, financial planning, and wealth management services, including managed accounts, 529 college savings plans, advisory offerings, and related investment products.

Experience architecting and designing technology solutions within Introducing Broker and Fully Disclosed Broker-Dealer operating models , including the design of applications, platforms, and integrations that support investment operations, regulatory compliance, and business objectives.

• •Extensive experience partnering with business executives, product owners, and product management teams to evaluate business strategies, identify capability gaps, create and assess technology solution options and tradeoffs, and provide effort and complexity comparisons that inform business investment and prioritization decisions.
• •Experience leading technology vendor evaluations and due diligence efforts , including assessment of technical capabilities, architectural fit, integration approaches, security and operational requirements, identification of solution gaps and risks, and review of contractual requirements to ensure alignment with functional and non-functional business needs.

What sets you apart:

• •Extensive experience architecting and implementing solutions across multiple Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms , including integration of third-party providers with enterprise applications, data platforms, and business capabilities across investment and financial services organizations.
• •Demonstrated technical breadth and ability to understand the large-scale system context across at least 2 technology domains, including but not limited to fraud and payments/money movement, within the context of brokerage account management.
• •Demonstrated ability to understand and incorporate enterprise level strategies, objectives, and requirements into the technology decision process.

Extensive experience explaining and influencing complex technology decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences at all levels in the organization and with cross functional and enterprise teams.

Compensation range: The salary range fo