Principal Architect

Job Description

Powering the world's payments ecosystem

ACI powers the payments ecosystem - globally, and you power ACI. You'll innovate, collaborate, and grow - in an energetic technology culture with decades of proven success. ACIers - in all roles and levels - are truly your colleagues and many are your friends. Our size and reach allow you to see the global impact of your work. You are visible, your talents are valued, and you are empowered to shape the future of payments.

JOB PURPOSE

The Principal Cloud Architect is a senior technical leader responsible for designing, implementing, and governing enterprise cloud architecture strategies across multi-cloud environments. Reporting to the Head of Platform Engineering or CTO, this role defines cloud architecture standards, drives cloud adoption initiatives, and provides technical leadership for complex cloud transformations. This position combines deep technical expertise with strategic vision to optimize cloud infrastructure for scalability, security, cost-efficiency, and business value.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Cloud Architecture & Strategy

• Define and maintain enterprise cloud architecture roadmap aligned with business objectives
• Design reference architectures and architecture patterns for multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Establish cloud architecture governance frameworks, standards, and best practices
• Lead architecture review boards and provide technical guidance on major cloud initiatives
• Drive cloud-native transformation strategies including containerization, serverless, and microservices
• Architect hybrid and multi-cloud solutions ensuring interoperability and portability
• Evaluate emerging cloud technologies and provide recommendations for adoption
• Develop architecture decision records (ADRs) and maintain architecture knowledge base

Technical Leadership & Solution Design

• Lead architecture design for complex, mission-critical cloud solutions
• Architect high-availability, fault-tolerant systems across multiple availability zones and regions
• Design disaster recovery and business continuity solutions with defined RPO/RTO targets
• Create technical architecture documentation including HLDs, LLDs, network diagrams, and data flow diagrams
• Collaborate with engineering teams to translate architecture vision into implementation roadmaps
• Conduct architecture workshops and design sessions with stakeholders
• Provide technical mentorship and architectural guidance to cloud engineers and architects
• Lead proof-of-concept initiatives for strategic cloud technologies

Cloud Security & Compliance

• Design and implement cloud security architecture following Zero Trust principles
• Establish identity and access management (IAM) strategies and policies
• Architect network security solutions including VPCs, security groups, NACLs, and transit gateways
• Implement encryption strategies for data at rest and in transit
• Design security monitoring and incident response frameworks
• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements (SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP)
• Conduct security architecture reviews and threat modeling exercises
• Partner with security teams to implement DevSecOps practices

Cloud Cost Optimization & FinOps

• Architect cost-efficient cloud solutions optimizing compute, storage, and network resources
• Implement FinOps practices and establish cloud cost governance frameworks
• Design automated cost optimization strategies including rightsizing, reserved instances, and savings plans
• Create cost allocation models and chargeback/showback mechanisms
• Monitor cloud spending patterns and provide cost optimization recommendations
• Establish cloud cost budgets, forecasting models, and variance reporting
• Architect solutions leveraging spot instances, autoscaling, and serverless for cost efficiency

Infrastructure as Code & Automation

• Design infrastructure as code (IaC) frameworks using Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, or Pulumi
• Establish CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure deployment and configuration management
• Architect GitOps workflows for infrastructure and application deployments
• Implement policy-as-code frameworks using tools like Open Policy Agent or Cloud Custodian
• Design automation solutions for cloud resource provisioning, monitoring, and lifecycle management
• Create reusable IaC modules and templates for common architecture patterns
• Establish testing frameworks for infrastructure code validation

Cloud Migration & Modernization

• Lead large-scale cloud migration programs using 6Rs framework (Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, etc.)
• Assess existing applications and infrastructure for cloud readiness
• Design migration strategies for databases, applications, and workloads
• Architect modernization roadmaps transforming legacy systems to cloud-native architectures
• Plan and execute data migration strategies ensuring minimal downtime
• Establish migration governance including wave planning, testing, and cutover procedures
• Design rollback and contingency plans for migration initiatives

DevOps & Platform Engineering

• Architect container orchestration platforms using Kubernetes/EKS/AKS/GKE
• Design service mesh architectures for microservices communication and observability
• Establish CI/CD platform strategies and reference implementations
• Architect observability solutions for logging, monitoring, tracing, and alerting
• Design API gateways and event-driven architectures
• Implement chaos engineering practices and resilience testing frameworks
• Architect developer platforms and self-service infrastructure capabilities

QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related technical field
• Master's degree preferred
• Equivalent experience (8+ years) may substitute for degree requirement

Experience

• 8-12+ years in cloud architecture, infrastructure engineering, or enterprise architecture
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• 3+ years in technical leadership or principal engineer roles
• Experience designing and implementing large-scale cloud transformations
• Experience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architectures
• Experience in payments, financial services, or regulated industries preferred
• Track record of architecting solutions supporting thousands of concurrent users

Technical Skills

Cloud Platform Expertise:

• Expert-level knowledge of AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, ECS/EKS, VPC, IAM, CloudFormation)
• Strong proficiency in Azure (VMs, Storage, SQL Database, Functions, AKS, VNet, Azure AD, ARM)
• Working knowledge of GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, GKE, VPC)
• Deep understanding of cloud-native services and managed offerings
• Experience with cloud migration tools (AWS Migration Hub, Azure Migrate, CloudEndure)

Infrastructure & Automation:

• Expert in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, Pulumi)
• Strong scripting skills (Python, PowerShell, Bash, Go)
• Proficiency with configuration management tools (Ansible, Chef, Puppet)
• Experience with GitOps practices and tools (ArgoCD, Flux)
• CI/CD platforms (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps)

Container & Orchestration:

• Deep expertise with Kubernetes and cloud-managed Kubernetes services
• Container technologies (Docker, containerd)
• Service mesh architectures (Istio, Linkerd, Consul)
• Helm charts and Kustomize for configuration management

Networking & Security:

• Advanced networking concepts (VPCs, subnets, routing, load balancing, DNS)
• VPN, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, and hybrid connectivity solutions
• Web Application Firewalls, DDoS protection, and security best practices
• Certificate management and secrets management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)
• Zero Trust architecture and microsegmentation

Data & Databases:

• Architecture experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server)
• NoSQL databases (DynamoDB, Cosmos DB, MongoDB)
• Data warehousing solutions (Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery)
• Database migration strategies and replication technologies
• Backup, recovery, and high-availability architectures

Observability & Monitoring:

• Cloud-native monitoring (CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Cloud Operations Suite)
• APM solutions (Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace)
• Logging platforms (ELK Stack, Splunk, CloudWatch Logs)
• Distributed tracing (Jaeger, X-Ray, Application Insights)

Methodologies & Frameworks:

• Enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman)
• Well-Architected Framework principles (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Twelve-Factor App methodology
• Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices
• FinOps and Cloud Financial Management principles
• Agile and DevOps methodologies

Professional Skills

• Exceptional communication skills with ability to articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Strategic thinking and business acumen
• Strong leadership and mentorship capabilities
• Ability to influence and drive consensus across diverse stakeholder groups
• Executive presence and presentation skills for C-level audiences
• Collaborative mindset with ability to work across organizational boundaries
• Problem-solving and critical thinking under pressure
• Customer-focused approach with emphasis on business outcomes

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree or MBA in related field
• 10+ years of enterprise cloud architecture experience
• Multi-cloud certifications across AWS, Azure, and GCP
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
• TOGAF or Zachman Framework certification
• FinOps Certified Practitioner
• Experience with infrastructure at massive scale (PB-scale data, millions of transactions/day)
• Published thought leadership (blogs, whitepapers, conference presentations)
• Open-source contributions to cloud-native projects
• Experience with AI/ML infrastructure and MLOps platforms
• Terraform or Kubernetes certifications
• CISSP, CCSP, or other security certifications

COMPETENCIES

Technical

• Cloud architecture and design mastery
• Multi-cloud platform expertise
• Security and compliance architecture
• Infrastructure automation and IaC
• System scalability and performance optimization
• Cost optimization and financial management
• DevOps and CI/CD practices

Professional

• Strategic vision and innovation
• Technical leadership and mentorship
• Stakeholder management and influence
• Decision-making and judgment
• Communication excellence across all levels
• Continuous learning and adaptation
• Collaboration and cross-functional partnership
• Business alignment and value delivery

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Hybrid work model (2-3 days in-office per week)
• Candidates based in Omaha, NE or Norcross, GA strongly preferred
• Standard office environment with ergonomic workstation
• 70% architecture design and technical leadership, 20% meetings and collaboration, 10% learning/research
• Moderate travel (10-20% annually) for client meetings, conferences, and architecture reviews
• May require occasional off-hours work for system implementations or critical issue resolution
• On-call rotation participation for critical production support
• Prolonged computer use with focus on complex problem-solving

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. This position does not offer sponsorship for employment visa status or work permit now or in the future.

In return for your expertise, we offer opportunities for growth, career development, and a competitive compensation and benefits package-all within an innovative and collaborative work environment.

Are you ready to help us transform the payments ecosystem? To learn more about ACI Worldwide, visit our web site at www.aciworldwide.comJob ID (Requisition #18459)

ACI Worldwide is an AA/EEO employer in the United States, which includes providing equal opportunity for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, and an EEO employer globally.

Important Notice About Recruitment Scams
Job seekers should be aware of ongoing recruitment scams where individuals or organizations impersonate legitimate companies to offer fake job opportunities. These scams often involve requests for personal information, payments, or interviews through unofficial channels. Please be cautious and verify any communications claiming to be from our company (www.aciworldwide.com / @aciworldwide.com). The ACI Worldwide recruitment team will always follow official channels and will never request payment.

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