Principal Engineer / Architect

• Tech Stack: AWS, JavaScript (Language-agnostic; architectural strategy is prioritized over daily coding).

Any Vanguard location- Plano, TX, Charlotte, NC, Malvern, PA, Phoenix, AZ - this is onsite T, W, and TH each week.

We are seeking a Principal Engineer / Architect to define and deliver our next-generation fraud prevention platform as we expand into new financial product offerings, including a new debit card initiative.

Operating within our strategy team, you will act as the technical authority on fraud risk and architecture. You will design real-time detection and decisioning systems, integrate AI/ML capabilities, and establish long-term technical roadmaps to protect the business against novel fraud vectors in a heavily regulated environment.

• Strategic Roadmap: Define and execute the multi-year technical vision for future-state fraud prevention systems across new and existing product lines.
• Platform Architecture: Design and build real-time detection, decisioning, and response systems capable of operating reliably at high transaction volumes.
• Product Expansion Support: Serve as the technical authority on fraud risk for new launches, specifically partnering with payment processors and external financial partners for our emerging debit card program.
• AI/ML Integration: Drive the adoption of AI/ML-driven development, LLM-augmented tooling, and intelligent automation across engineering and fraud operations workflows.
• Technical Leadership: Conduct design reviews, write high-impact production code where needed, set standards, and mentor engineers without needing formal managerial authority.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with product, risk, compliance, data science, and business leadership to align engineering execution with overall risk strategy.

• 12+ years in software engineering with a primary focus on banking, payments, transaction monitoring, or fraud prevention.
• Domain Expertise: Deep understanding of payment networks, authorization systems, identity verification, and financial regulations (PCI-DSS, BSA/AML, Reg E).
• Architecture Experience: Proven track record of architecting distributed, low-latency, real-time systems in a regulated financial environment.
• AI/ML Fluency: Demonstrated experience integrating applied machine learning, automated decisioning, or intelligent tools into production.
• Strategic Leadership: Experienced in operating at a Staff/Principal/Architect level, influencing executive leadership while staying technically hands-on.

• Experience at a major bank, asset manager, or fintech scaling into new payment/debit products.
• Hands-on familiarity with real-time streaming architectures (Kafka, Flink) and complex decision engines.
• Background in adversarial modeling, behavioral analytics, or fraud ring detection.
• AWS cloud architecture experience.