Director, Architecture Lead

Director, Architecture Lead

At BNY, our culture allows us to run our company better and enables employees growth and success. As a leading global financial services company at the heart of the global financial system, we influence nearly 20% of the worlds investible assets. Every day, our teams harness cutting-edge AI and breakthrough technologies to collaborate with clients, driving transformative solutions that redefine industries and uplift communities worldwide.

Recognized as a top destination for innovators, BNY is where bold ideas meet advanced technology and exceptional talent. Together, we power the future of finance and this is what #LifeAtBNY is all about. Join us and be part of something extraordinary.

BNY is seeking a Director-level Architect to lead enterprise architecture for Compliance Engineering with deep technical expertise in banking payments (SWIFT, ACH, RTP) and strong knowledge of Financial Crime (with emphasis on Anti-Money Laundering, and Market Abuse). This leader will define and drive high-performance, resilient, and compliant technology designs, collaborating across engineering, data, compliance, and business stakeholder groups to deliver secure, scalable, and standards-aligned solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture Leadership

• Define end-to-end target and transitional architectures for payments and compliance platforms, integrating SWIFT, ACH, RTP, and related rails.
• Establish and maintain reference architectures, design patterns, and guardrails that meet performance, resiliency (RTO/RPO), security, and compliance objectives.
• Lead architecture reviews, threat modeling, and resiliency assessments; ensure adherence to standards and best practices.
• Design, Documentation, and Communication
• Rapidly produce high-quality designs, diagrams, sequence and data flow models, and documentation that are clear, consistent, and actionable.
• Communicate complex topics simply for compliance, business stakeholders, and regulators; engage in deep technical discussions with developers, data engineers, and SREs.
• Translate regulatory requirements (e.g., AML/KYC, data retention, transaction monitoring) into technical designs and control implementation guidance.
• Payments and Financial Crime Expertise
• Architect solutions for transaction monitoring, surveillance, and other core Compliance capabilities.
• Partner with Financial Crime teams to design detection, investigation, and reporting capabilities; align technology to typologies and risk indicators.
• Ensure designs meet or exceed standards for security, privacy, auditability, traceability, and regulatory expectations.

Data Architecture and Quality

• Define critical data elements (CDEs), data models, lineage, mapping, and data quality rules for payments and compliance domains.
• Drive metadata management, master/reference data strategies, and robust data controls across ingestion, processing, storage, and consumption.
• Collaborate with data engineering for scalable pipelines, streaming, and batch processing; ensure data reliability, timeliness, and completeness.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work across Compliance Engineering and partner platforms/practices to deliver integrated solutions; facilitate design decisions and trade-offs.
• Mentor architects and engineers; cultivate a collaborative, high-performing culture aligned to BNY principles (Be Client Obsessed, Spark Progress, Own It, Stay Curious, Thrive Together).
• Contribute to roadmap planning, capacity and cost optimization, and operational excellence.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years in software/solution/data/enterprise architecture with prior hands-on engineering experience (e.g., application development, integration, data engineering).
• Proven delivery of large-scale, mission-critical payment systems and/or financial crime platforms in regulated financial services environments.
• Technical Depth
• Deep understanding of payment rails and formats (e.g., SWIFT MT/ISO 20022, NACHA/ACH, RTP), messaging, clearing/settlement flows, and exception handling.
• Strong data architecture expertise: relational and distributed databases, schema design, CDE definition, data quality, lineage, mapping, and governance.
• Integration patterns (APIs, event streaming, messaging), microservices, and distributed systems performance and resiliency engineering.
• Security and compliance controls: encryption, key management, identity/authorization, logging/monitoring, auditability, and regulatory reporting.
• Communication & Leadership
• Excellent written and verbal communication; adept at simplifying complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences and regulators.
• Effective collaborator and influencer; able to lead design forums, resolve technical conflicts, and drive consensus across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Education: Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• Certifications: Relevant cloud (e.g., Azure/AWS), data (e.g., data management/governance), security (e.g., CISSP), AML/Financial Crime (e.g., CAMS) are a plus.
• Tooling Proficiency: Industry-standard diagramming and modeling tools (e.g., UML/BPMN), data modeling tools, and documentation frameworks; experience with CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code is beneficial.
• Standards & Practices: Familiarity with ISO 20022, NACHA rules, SWIFT CSP, NIST/industry security standards, and operational risk/resiliency frameworks.

Success Measures

• High-quality architectures that meet performance, resiliency, security, and compliance requirements and pass governance reviews.
• Clear, consistent documentation and diagrams enabling efficient delivery and audit readiness.
• Measurable improvements in system reliability, throughput/latency, data quality, and incident reduction.
• Strong cross-team collaboration and stakeholder satisfaction across Compliance, Engineering, and business functions.

BNY Alignment

• Strategic Pillars: Be More for our Clients; Run our Company Better; Power our Culture.
• Principles: Be Client Obsessed; Spark Progress; Own It; Stay Curious; Thrive Together.
• Equal Opportunity BNY is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and welcome candidates from all backgrounds.

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Heres a few of our recent awards:

• Americas Most Innovative Companies, Fortune, 2025
• Worlds Most Admired Companies, Fortune 2025
• Most Just Companies, Just Capital and CNBC, 2025

Our Benefits and Rewards:

BNY offers highly competitive compensation, benefits, and wellbeing programs rooted in a strong culture of excellence and our pay-for-performance philosophy. We provide access to flexible global resources and tools for your lifes journey. Focus on your health, foster your personal resilience, and reach your financial goals as a valued member of our team, along with generous paid leaves, including paid volunteer time, that can support you and your family through moments that matter.

BNY is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer - Underrepresented racial and ethnic groups/Females/Individuals with Disabilities/Protected Veterans.