Principal Architect, Executive Director: Solution Architecture

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase · Banking · Jersey City, NJ +1 · Corporate Sector

Principal Architect, Executive Director role focused on defining and governing end-to-end solution architectures for critical platforms and transformation programs within Corporate Technology at JPMorgan Chase. The role involves partnering with senior leaders to shape technology strategy, guide programs from concept to production, and mentor architects. It requires expertise in cloud platforms, microservices, event-driven architectures, MLOps, model governance, responsible AI patterns, and security/resiliency. The position emphasizes translating business strategy into architecture roadmaps and ensuring compliance with enterprise standards and regulatory obligations in a financial services context.

What you'd actually do

  1. Translates business strategy into pragmatic solution roadmaps and reference architectures
  2. Drives architecture decisions balancing resilience, scalability, latency, cost, risk, and time-to-market
  3. Sets and enforces design principles, patterns, and guardrails across portfolios
  4. Chairs or contributes to Architecture Review Boards, ensuring compliance with enterprise standards and regulatory obligations
  5. Builds trusted advisor relationships with CTOs, Chief Architects, and senior leaders to co-create technology strategy and execution plans

Skills

Required

  • Formal training or certification on software engineering concepts and 10+ years applied experience
  • Proven track record leading architecture for large, distributed, mission-critical systems with 24x7 operations and high resiliency targets
  • Deep expertise in architecture patterns: microservices, event-driven and streaming architectures, API-led connectivity, data mesh/lakehouse, CQRS, and domain-driven design
  • Experience with hyperscale cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), container orchestration (Kubernetes), service mesh, CI/CD, IaC, observability, and platform engineering
  • Strong knowledge of real-time streaming (Kafka/Pulsar), batch analytics, MLOps, model governance, and responsible AI patterns
  • Security and resiliency expertise: zero trust, secrets management, identity, encryption, chaos engineering, disaster recovery, and site reliability practices
  • Integration and legacy modernization: messaging, APIs, eventing, SOA-to-microservices transitions, mainframe integration, and strangler-fig approaches
  • Executive presence with ability to simplify complexity and influence outcomes across senior stakeholders in both the business and technology
  • Strong vendor management and build/buy/partner decisioning; experience shaping multi-year investment portfolios
  • Bachelor’s/Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)

Nice to have

  • Relevant certifications (e.g., AWS/Azure/GCP Architect, TOGAF, CISSP, SAFe)
  • Experience in global financial services and regulated environments
  • Hands-on pragmatism; able to review designs and code-level artifacts while maintaining a strategic lens
  • Experience with platform engineering, green software, and confidential computing
  • Strong communication and relationship-building skills across C-suite and engineering teams
  • Experience mentoring and developing architecture talent
  • Familiarity with compliance regimes (e.g., EBA, PRA, OCC, MAS) and architecture support for regulatory requirements

What the JD emphasized

  • mission-critical systems with 24x7 operations and high resiliency targets
  • regulatory obligations
  • global financial services and regulated environments
  • compliance regimes (e.g., EBA, PRA, OCC, MAS) and architecture support for regulatory requirements