Techincal Director - Solutions Architect

Job Description

Your Opportunity

Charles Schwab’s Architects thrive in a leading-edge work culture while developing products that help Schwab customers learn, explore and make life-impacting moves on their paths to achieving their goals. The Platform & Application Architecture Team is looking for a Solution Architect to work on Common Components and a Target State Reference Architecture for the extended Schwab technology organization. This position requires a self-motivated individual with strong leadership qualities, architectural breadth and technical depth who can reliably contribute in a highly collaborative culture and Agile team environment. 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. You will work closely with other technologists to define the strategy for the firm and provide critical capabilities that impact the entirety of Schwab technology across multiple diverse lines of business. You will generalize established and emerging architectural requirements and best practices into clear architectural direction for the enterprise. You will be a part of Schwab's Platform & Application Architecture team: A group of thought leaders responsible for holistic Technology strategy (Mobile, Web, Data, Cloud, etc.).

If you consider yourself someone that strong developers, leads and architects want to work with and you have the uncanny ability to drive a compelling long-term technology vision this is an opportunity to lead the development of a unified Schwab enterprise. Your hands-on experience in cloud architectures (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS) and deep interest and experience in broad enterprise platforms (information architecture, information flow, appropriate modularization and loose coupling while measuring flexibility with specification and optimization) will have direct impact on the direction of the company, our customers and our industry.

What you’re good at

• Architecture Ideation - Assist the business in the scoping and planning of upcoming projects.
• Architecture and Design - Participate/Lead in producing conceptual, solution, and component-level architectures and associated artifacts.
• Advise/Mentor on Technical Architecture and Design - Provide advice and guidance to team leads regarding technical and design decisions.
• Provide direction, guidance, definition, evaluation, and facilitation for the development of current and future architecture.
• Develop and document standards and best practices.
• Own the end to end solution design and architecture for Common Components critical to the Schwab enterprise.
• Work to assemble and document, and maintain a high-level target state architecture vision for the Schwab enterprise as a whole.
• Help to develop new and revised governance processes to ensure alignment of a diverse set of technology projects with the enterprise target state vision.
• Collaborate with the extended Schwab architecture community to design/deliver larger scoped initiatives.
• Travel occasionally to collaborate with fellow technologists, engineering teams, and Schwab Technology Services leadership.

What you have

• Ability to own architecture, including long term direction and presentation of a vision for the future of the end-to-end Schwab Technology platform.
• Ability to drive through, directly and through influence, optimal solution strategy, with agility and leadership qualities which engineers recognize and respect.
• Desire and ability to understand diverse business domains and develop architectures that meet the current and anticipated business needs across a broad set of stakeholders.
• Anility to evaluate new technologies and stay current with a broad range of industry trends.
• Good judgment and the ability to manage high pressure situations.
• Experience with and knowledge of common Architecture patterns (e.g. microservices, GoF, SOA, Event sourcing, etc.).
• Experience addressing operational and non-functional concerns (e.g. horizontal & vertical scalability, performance, maintainability, load distribution, resilience and recovery, etc.).
• Experience with Cloud Native (12-Factor) Architecture and Infrastructure Patterns.
• Experience with the 4+1 architectural view model.
• Knowledge of the enterprise technology space: languages, frameworks, techniques, and industry trends.
• Ability (and preference) to work in an Agile environment.
• Ability to devise, develop and apply innovative technology to solutions that would benefit our clients.
• Ability to influence and effect changes that have broad and long-term impact on the firm.
• Refined presentation and communication skills and the ability to interface and communicate effectively with both engineers and executives.
• A strong software engineering and/or architecture background is required.