Principal - Cloud Integration Architect

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).

We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Principal-level Integration Architect to join Charles Schwab's Application Architecture team. The role will advance Schwab’s API & Service Architecture vision by creating guidance and mechanisms that enable the company to think firm-wide when considering capabilities development. You will work closely with business, product, and technology partners to translate long-term objectives into designs that fuel firm-wide reuse and convergence.

The right individual will be a proactive, self-starter that enjoys and thrives when connecting people and technology to solve complex problems at-scale. You will analyze, model, and develop complex and high-level architecture plans that require the integration of multiple technologies and coordination of functional areas across the organization. If you have a passion and skill for long-term end-to-end thinking balanced with crafting architecture increments that enable value for customers now, this opportunity is for you!

The Cross-Enterprise Architecture team within the Application Architecture organization is responsible for defining the building blocks and target-state cross-enterprise vision that helps Schwab avoid duplication and optimize architecture. We are an organization that values diverse and big thinking, rewards both behaviors and delivery, and focuses on growth and continuous improvement – all in support of Schwab’s mission to help clients and one another succeed.

This role reports up to the Office of the CTO, chartered to establish technology governance, standards, practices, and strategy for the entire firm, enabling thousands of technologists to better serve the millions of Schwab clients and trillions of dollars in client assets. The role requires close collaboration with architects and engineers across the Schwab Technology Services (STS) organization.

What you have

Leadership qualifications:

• Architecture leadership skills enabling success in owning architecture and influencing strategic direction and vision for the future.
• Desire and ability to understand diverse business domains and develop architectures that meet the current and anticipated business needs across a broad set of partners.
• Ability to evaluate new technologies and know the latest industry trends.
• Good judgment and the ability to handle high pressure situations.
• Solid communication and presentation skills to deliver innovative ideas to executive leadership for the purposes of alignment and key decision making.
• Connect the dots mentality that drives efficiencies in architectures and processes. 

Required qualifications:

• Champions architectural strategies across teams and enterprises
• Leads enterprise architecture strategy through guidance, standards, and governance
• Strong knowledge of both cloud and service mesh platforms and technologies (GCP, Anthos, Kubernetes, Istio)
• Proficiency with middleware technologies, API gateway technologies and integration patterns including emerging Agent, MCP and LLM integration scenarios
• Strong understanding of traffic management patterns and solutions spanning all layers of an architecture to achieve resiliency targets
• Familiarity with DevOps tools (Github Actions) and infrastructure-as-code (e.g. Python, Terraform)
• 10+ years’ experience addressing operational and non-functional concerns (e.g. horizontal & vertical scalability, performance, maintainability, load distribution, resilience, recovery, security and privacy)
• 3+ years’ experience mitigating OWASP Top 10 API Security Risks
• 5+ years’ experience with cloud technologies and API management, preferably with knowledge of Enterprise API Management platforms.
• 5+ years’ experience delivering services at scale to cloud platforms, preferably GCP.

Preferred qualifications:

• Use of AI and LLMs to aide in modeling and management of API design
• Anticipates and responds to evolving business needs while managing organizational priorities
• Leverages analytical insights to shape policy, drive outcomes, and guide strategy
• Communicates key information with stakeholders across multiple channels to ensure successful outcomes
• Utilizes holistic, abstract, or theoretical perspectives to guide strategic direction and anticipates industry trends
• Transforms data into actionable insights and mentors others in diagnostic techniques
• Influences innovative solutions and contingency plans in the broader area of focus
• Promotes creativity, experimentation, and strategic thinking to differentiate Schwab from its competitors
• Exerts executive influence to drive enterprise-wide direction and optimize partnerships
• Experience in financial, investment management and securities markets.

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