Enterprise Architect

Description

The company is a global consulting firm that uses digital technology and creative problem solving to build solutions for financial services and technology clients.

Its work spans AI, consulting, digital, cloud and DevOps, data, and software engineering. Its FinLabs research units develop solutions such as blockchain, data science models, digital underwriting and mobile-first applications.

The company has more than 17,000 staff across 58 offices in 22 countries and has operated for over 20 years.

This non-billable Principal Architect role leads technical quality for the Canada Financial Services practice. You set the bar for architecture designs and code, shape the practice's IP and frameworks, and stay hands-on in key design and build decisions.

You provide architecture guidance, technical leadership, code-level review and partnership with clients and internal teams across all FS consulting engagements.

Responsibilities

• Technical leadership and architecture quality (25% of time): set and enforce architecture standards and decision rigor across all Canada FS engagements.
• Review designs from delivery architects and consultants against OSFI, PIPEDA and AML/KYC requirements.
• Weigh trade-offs such as performance against compliance, innovation against stability, and cost against architectural purity. Challenge assumptions, give an independent view, and raise architectural risks early.
• Lead architecture decision boards for complex choices such as cloud platforms, AI/ML frameworks and integration patterns. Write decision records covering rationale, trade-offs and compliance impact, so each decision holds up with clients, company leadership and OSFI examiners.
• Take part in high-stakes design work and lead design workshops with client stakeholders. Run deep dives on options such as cloud vendors, ML frameworks and integration middleware.
• Define patterns and standards for FS engagements covering microservices, event-driven design, APIs, data and security. Build templates and reusable components, and document criteria for choices such as event-driven versus request-response, build versus buy, and private versus public cloud.
• Turn FS regulatory requirements into architecture patterns and design compliance-first systems covering OSFI cloud guidelines, AI governance expectations, fair lending controls and AML transaction monitoring. Build reusable regulatory frameworks.
• Hands-on delivery (20% of time): join critical workstreams, lead design workshops and proof-of-concept work that tests key assumptions. Compare cloud platforms, databases and integration middleware, and evaluate vendor solutions against requirements.
• Review architecture-critical code and pull requests, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Helm), API, schema and data model choices, and compliance controls such as audit logging, encryption, access control and fair lending bias detection.
• Check detailed designs before build, validate implementation during build and testing, run pre-deployment compliance reviews, manage design changes and scope creep, and support go-live and later optimization.
• Stay hands-on with the technologies used on engagements. Assess technology for new work, recommend stacks, and prototype emerging options such as generative AI, blockchain and advanced analytics for FS use.
• Innovation (20% of time): track emerging FS technology, assess fit, build investment cases and contribute to thought leadership.
• Build and co-own FS frameworks such as the responsible AI governance framework, the OSFI-compliant cloud architecture pattern and the fair lending validation framework. Create reference architectures for cloud migration, transaction banking, AI governance and real-time data.
• Prototype and build demonstrations for client presentations, contribute code to internal tools, and lead development of architecture validation tools.
• Lead technical communities of practice in cloud architecture, AI governance, real-time data and API management. Run forums, workshops and learning sessions, and write for the architecture blog and internal documentation.
• Mentoring and team development (10% of time): guide 5 to 8 delivery architects on design thinking, technical depth and FS regulatory knowledge through one-to-one sessions, design reviews and pair programming.
• Support hiring by joining technical interviews and candidate assessments, building the talent pipeline, and sponsoring strong team members for promotion.
• Take part in the global architecture community: join forums, share practice across regions, mentor architects in other countries, and lead or co-lead global technical communities.
• Technical depth and perspective (20% of time): form and explain informed views on technology across cloud and infrastructure, data and analytics, AI/ML and GenAI, and security and compliance.
• Cover areas such as multi-cloud deployment and cost, Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, zero-trust networking, WAF and DDoS mitigation, RTO/RPO disaster recovery design, data lakes, streaming platforms such as Kafka, Kinesis and Pub/Sub, data governance, relational, NoSQL, time-series and in-memory databases, LLMs and RAG, MLOps tools, model governance and bias detection, enterprise GenAI, encryption and key management, IAM (RBAC, ABAC, OAuth 2.0, SAML, MFA), audit and compliance, and OWASP Top 10.
• Explain trade-offs, teach others, challenge decisions with technical rigor, and predict technology trends 12 to 24 months ahead. You work at the code, architecture and strategy levels rather than delegating deep technical work.
• Quality, risk and compliance (5% of time): keep client satisfaction above 90% through quarterly feedback reviews, ensure work meets the company's Delivery Excellence Framework, and take part in quality audits and retrospectives.
• Manage technical, regulatory and delivery risks: keep risk registers, escalate to engagement leadership and the client CIO, review designs for fair lending, AML and audit trail compliance, and support the client's OSFI examination preparation.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, information technology or a related field.
• 15+ years in enterprise architecture and technology leadership, including at least 10 years at senior architect level (Principal Architect or equivalent).
• 10+ years in financial services such as banking, capital markets, payments or wealth management, with a strong grasp of FS business models, regulation and technology landscapes.
• 8+ years in consulting (management, technology or boutique FS), delivering complex work to C-suite clients.
• A record of leading transformation at Tier-1 financial institutions, such as platform modernization, cloud transformation or regulatory compliance architecture.
• Cloud: hybrid and multi-cloud design and vendor management, with AWS, Azure or GCP architecture experience in regulated FS environments.
• Architecture patterns: microservices, event-driven, API-first, data mesh and domain-driven design, at enterprise scale of billions of transactions and millions of concurrent users.
• AI/ML governance: responsible AI frameworks, model risk management, bias detection and explainability, and familiarity with OSFI, Fed and ECB AI guidance.
• Data platforms: data lake architecture, data governance, real-time streaming (Kafka, event engines) and data quality frameworks.
• FS systems: retail banking cores, commercial banking platforms, capital markets trading, payment systems and settlement architectures.
• Integration: ESB, API management, REST, GraphQL and event-driven integration, including high-volume designs above 1 billion daily transactions.
• Security: zero-trust architecture, IAM, encryption standards, audit logging and compliance control mapping.
• Working knowledge of OSFI, fair lending, AML/KYC, PIPEDA and data privacy, and regulatory examinations.
• Preferred: master's degree (MBA, MSc in computer science or related).
• Preferred: AWS Solutions Architect Professional, AWS Security Specialty, Google Cloud Professional Architect, TOGAF 9 or Certified Kubernetes Administrator, or equivalent hands-on certifications rather than general credentials such as CISSP.
• Preferred: active open-source contributor with meaningful, production-grade code on GitHub.
• Preferred: published blog posts, whitepapers or academic papers on architecture, cloud, AI/ML or FS technology.
• Preferred: prior architecture leadership at fintechs, tier-1 banks or FS consultancies, with exposure to FS regulatory complexity.
• Preferred: certifications on multiple clouds and experience running mission-critical workloads across them.
• Preferred: experience deploying ML models to production, with MLOps and model governance know-how.
• Preferred: participation in emerging technology research groups and hands-on work with generative AI, advanced data platforms or blockchain.
• Preferred: conference speaking at major technical forums such as AWS re:Invent, Google Cloud Summit, QCon, O'Reilly Architecture Summit, IEEE or ACM.

Conditions

Non-billable role.

Base salary varies by geography and other factors. For a hire in Mississauga, ON, the base salary is CAD $180k to CAD $210k per year, plus benefits, in accordance with law.

Flexible hybrid working policy.

The company is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and makes employment decisions based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications.

Benefits

• Possibility to work abroad across the company's 58 offices in 22 countries.
• 15 days (3 weeks) of paid annual leave plus 10 days of personal leave (floating and sick days).
• Insurance covering medical, dental, vision, life and long-term disability.
• RRSP with an employer contribution up to 4%.
• Higher education certification policy.
• On-demand access to over 5,000 curated courses on Udemy for Business, free for all employees.
• Coaching from experienced colleagues in FinLabs and Centres of Excellence.
• Work on cutting-edge projects for leading tier-one banks, financial institutions and insurers.
• Diverse, global work culture.