Director, Platform Architect Principal - Wealth Management)

Your opportunity

At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.

We believe in the importance of in-office collaboration and fully intend for the selected candidate for this role to work on site in the specified location(s).

Schwab Technology Services enables the future of how clients manage their money by providing innovative and reliable technology products and services as a part of our ongoing commitment to democratize access to investing and financial planning.

Wealth and Advice Solutions Technology (WAS Tech) is an organization within Schwab Technology Services dedicated to supporting the technology needs of the Wealth and Advice Solutions (WAS) business. Our mission is to empower high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients by delivering differentiated offerings and tailored financial advice that meet their unique needs.

This role is part of a highly talented and experienced architecture team responsible for setting the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Schwab Wealth and Advice Solutions platform. The team works in close partnership with Enterprise Architecture, ensuring architectural decisions support long-term business goals, future scalability and high resiliency. The team’s collaborative approach with product leaders fosters an environment where cutting-edge technology solutions are appreciated as a critical component of achieving business objectives which drive ongoing market leadership.

In this position, you will collaborate closely with a talented, motivated team of technologists who are passionate about making technology a strategic differentiator for Schwab’s WAS business and its clients. Your leadership and technical acumen will be essential in shaping a cohesive architecture strategy that aligns with business objectives and industry best practices. 

This role requires a strong background in leading architecture strategy as well as hands-on experience throughout the implementation lifecycle. You should be comfortable influencing technology direction, providing expert guidance, and ensuring the successful delivery of complex, integrated solutions in a fast-paced, agile environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and evolve the target architecture for wealth management platforms, including Schwab Wealth advisory systems, portfolio management, CRM integrations, client portals, digital advice, Wealth vendor integration.
• Lead architecture strategy, reference architectures, and technology roadmaps that improve scalability, security, availability, and advisor and client experiences.
• Design secure, scalable integration patterns across core wealth applications, custodians, market data providers, enterprise services, third-party fintech platforms, and AI-enabled capabilities.
• Drive platform modernization through cloud adoption, API enablement, microservices, event-driven architecture, containerization, and selective AI/ML implementation.
• Collaborate with business leaders, product teams, peer architects, enterprise architects, engineers, and external vendors to translate business capabilities into cohesive technical solutions and interoperable platform designs.
• Evaluate and recommend wealth technology platforms, vendor ecosystem capabilities, and emerging technologies to enhance advisor productivity, client experience, and operational efficiency.
• Provide architectural leadership across the software delivery lifecycle, resolving complex technical challenges and guiding implementation decisions.
• Ensure solutions comply with financial services regulations, cybersecurity standards, AI governance, and data privacy requirements.
• Stay current on industry trends in wealth management technology, generative AI, analytics, and digital advisory platforms, and apply that insight to drive innovation.

What you have

Required Qualifications:

• Extensive experience serving as a Technical Architect for large-scale, enterprise-wide wealth management platforms, with deep expertise across portfolio management, trading and rebalancing, risk, reporting, financial planning, CRM, client engagement, and wealth management operations.
• 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, preferably in Java, with at least 5+ years designing, developing, and integrating solutions in the investment services or wealth management industry.
• Strong technical depth in enterprise application architecture across distributed systems, APIs, middleware, microservices, event-driven systems, and hybrid cloud environments.
• Hands-on experience designing and implementing cloud-native solutions, with expertise in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) strongly preferred.
• Solid understanding of the wealth management technology ecosystem, including custodians, portfolio management platforms, CRM solutions, reporting tools, financial planning systems, and advisor workstation technologies.
• Experience leading cloud transformation and digital modernization initiatives in financial services.
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements, data governance, cybersecurity principles, responsible AI practices, and security controls relevant to financial services environments.
• Experience supporting production operations and applying Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles to improve system reliability, observability, performance, and operational excellence.
• Familiarity with AI/ML integration patterns, modern data architecture concepts, and the practical application of emerging technologies in enterprise platforms.
• Excellent communication, documentation, stakeholder management, and leadership skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders, build alignment, and drive decisions across diverse teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Utilizes intelligence of the investment services industry, market, and competition to influence business strategy.
• Promotes creativity, experimentation, and strategic thinking to differentiate Schwab from its competitors.
• Experience with Enterprise Architecture practices and standards.
• 10+ years architecting scalable, highly available web, UI/UX, and microservices-based solutions.
• Hands-on experience with Angular and modern front-end architecture patterns.
• Strong experience architecting and building cloud-based or cloud-ready applications strongly preferred.
• Experience with cloud-native architecture and platforms such as Kubernetes, GKE, API management, and Apigee.
• Experience with relational or cloud-native databases, including Oracle and Cloud SQL PostgreSQL.
• Experience with security, IAM, and enterprise-grade financial systems integration is a plus.
• Familiarity with AI/ML integration concepts, Vertex AI, BigQuery, data analytics, and observability and monitoring tools.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, with GitHub suite preferred.
• Experience working in Agile development environments.

In addition to the salary range, this role is also eligible for bonus or incentive opportunities.