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.
About the role

As a Principal Architect at ACI, you'll shape how multiple products and platforms are built - taking on the toughest technical assignments where there's no obvious solution and setting architectural direction that spans well beyond a single team. You'll mentor architects and senior engineers across the organization and help align the broader architecture community around ACI's unified enterprise direction as cloud-native and AI-enabled practices become the default.
What You'll Own

• Provide architecture leadership across multiple products or platforms - not just a single domain - resolving the toughest technical assignments where there's no obvious solution
• Perform significant mentoring and coaching of architects and senior engineers across the organization, communicating with broader architecture and engineering audiences to raise the collective bar
• Provide architectural and big-picture oversight for new or enhanced products and services, and create or shape Architecture Roadmaps that span product lines
• Drive compliance with and evolution of ACI's architectural standards across customer and product initiatives org-wide
• Support development and product leadership with high-level analysis, design reviews, performance/scalability guidance, and deep subject-matter expertise
• Plan and direct cross-product initiatives: review scope, plan resource use, and partner with project managers to ensure critical programs land
• Research and evaluate emerging technologies, design patterns, and products at a strategic level, determining what's worth incorporating across ACI's portfolio
• Maintain and actively leverage cross-product architectural knowledge, driving reuse of techniques and technologies across teams where it creates real value
• Set the standard for how AI/ML and cloud-native architecture are used across multiple product lines, not just within a single team
• Define how ACI's platforms authenticate and authorize non-human payment initiators, positioning ACI's architecture relative to emerging agent-initiated payment standards and agent identity/consent frameworks
• Define how AI coding and development agents are used safely across the SDLC - what can be delegated, what requires human review, and how architectural governance (ADRs, fitness functions) adapts as agents generate and modify production code
• Work directly with customers on innovative ideas and projects, translating customer needs into long-term technical strategy
• May select staff and provide input to performance reviews; contribute to resource planning and capital budget decisions for the architecture function
• Align the broader architecture community around critical directional issues, assisting Chief Architects in setting unified enterprise direction

Our Tech Stack

Deep expertise in this exact stack isn't a hard requirement - strong architects from adjacent stacks are welcome to apply.

• Architecture modeling & governance - recognized expertise producing and reviewing ADRs, architecture models, and fitness-function frameworks across multiple teams
• Domain-driven design - deep, applied expertise using DDD to resolve real-time cross-system boundary problems at scale
• Cloud & data architecture - deep, cross-product expertise in multi-cloud design and data platform architecture (data lakes, warehouses, streaming)
• Gen AI / ML architecture - sets standards for AI/ML pipeline architecture across multiple product teams, including governance and observability practices
• Agentic commerce & agent payment protocols - working knowledge of the agent-initiated payment landscape (agent identity, consent/mandate verification, agent-scoped tokenization) and a point of view on how ACI's platforms should interoperate with it
• Payments & financial systems - deep expertise in payment processing standards and flows (ISO 8583, ISO 20022, card networks, real-time payment rails)
• Security & compliance architecture - recognized expertise in IAM, zero-trust design, and regulatory architecture (PCI-DSS, SOC 2, GDPR, regional payment regulations) across products
• Fraud, risk & tokenization architecture - deep expertise in real-time fraud/risk engines, tokenization strategy, and network-level risk scoring across payment flows

What You Bring

You don't need to check every box below to apply - if most of this resonates, we want to hear from you.

• 15+ years of related experience, including deep technical product architecture and/or product development experience, architectural modeling (UML or equivalent), and extensive experience applying design patterns to real engineering problems
• Advanced critical thinking - you take on the toughest technical assignments precisely because there's no obvious solution, and you're comfortable being the final word when trade-offs are genuinely hard
• Systems thinking that spans multiple products - you see where complexity and risk will emerge across product boundaries, not just within one
• Deep, cross-product expertise in SaaS and cloud-native architecture, with a track record of decisions that held up across multiple teams and products
• A track record of turning curiosity into org-wide capability - the investigations you drive change how multiple teams work, not just your own
• Exceptional architectural judgment and the credibility to make final calls on cross-product trade-offs, including cost, security, and regulatory constraints
• Extensive experience architecting secure, multi-cloud solutions at an organizational level
• Deep experience with data architecture, governance, and regulatory reporting design across products
• Strong point of view on enterprise AI/ML architecture, grounded in real implementation experience
• A point of view on how AI/agentic tooling fits safely into the software development lifecycle, and how architectural governance evolves as agents take on a growing share of implementation work
• A demonstrated track record of mentoring and growing architects and senior engineers, and of aligning the broader technical community around shared direction
• Outstanding communication - credible with engineering leadership, product leadership, and customers alike

Bonus Points

• Extensive experience in payments, financial services, or another regulated industry
• A track record of defining or evolving an enterprise-wide reference architecture
• Experience contributing to industry standards bodies, whitepapers, or open-source projects
• Experience selecting, developing, or evaluating technical staff
• A history of running or scaling technical enablement programs (guilds, workshops, hackathons) across the organization
• Experience with agent-initiated payment protocols or agent identity/consent frameworks, or with cost-aware ("FinOps") architecture at scale

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 Job ID (Requisition #20019)

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.

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About Us

ACI Worldwide is a global leader in mission-critical, real-time payments software. Our proven, secure and scalable software solutions enable leading corporations, fintechs and financial disruptors to process and manage digital payments, power omni-commerce payments, present and process bill payments, and manage fraud and risk. We combine our global footprint with a local presence to drive the real-time digital transformation of payments and commerce.