Principal Engineer / Architect

Principal Engineer / Architect - Fraud Prevention Technology

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Senior technical individual contributor responsible for defining and delivering Vanguard's next-generation fraud prevention platform. You will architect solutions that protect emerging product lines-including debit card and payments offerings-from novel fraud vectors, while remaining hands-on in code and system design.

Responsibilities

- Define the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for fraud prevention systems across new and existing product lines

- Design and build real-time detection, decisioning, and response systems scaled to Vanguard's transaction volumes

- Drive adoption of AI/ML-driven development practices and embed intelligent automation into fraud operations and engineering workflows

- Serve as the technical authority on fraud risk for new product launches (payments, debit, etc.)

- Lead by example-write production code, conduct design reviews, and set engineering standards

- Partner with product, risk, compliance, and data science teams to translate fraud strategy into executable architecture

- Mentor engineers and elevate team capabilities without formal management authority

Qualifications

- 12+ years in software engineering with 5+ years focused on fraud prevention, payments, or banking technology

- Deep domain expertise in payment networks, transaction monitoring, authorization systems, or identity verification

- Demonstrated experience architecting distributed, low-latency systems in a regulated financial environment

- Strong fluency in applied AI/ML-model integration, LLM-augmented tooling, or intelligent automation in production

- Track record of defining and executing technical strategy at staff/principal/architect level

- Comfortable operating as a hands-on engineer while influencing at the senior management tier

- Experience with industry standards and regulations (PCI-DSS, BSA/AML, Reg E, network rules)

Preferred

- Prior experience at a large asset manager, bank, or fintech scaling into new payment products

- Familiarity with real-time streaming architectures (Kafka, Flink) and decisioning engines

- Background in adversarial modeling or fraud ring detection

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*This is a senior-manager-equivalent individual contributor role. No direct reports.*

This is a newly created position within our strategy team. Over the past several years, we've built a robust foundation and reached a solid level of maturity with our fraud prevention program. However, we're now entering a new phase where business demand is increasing significantly, and we're expanding into new product offerings.

The most significant initiative is the introduction of a debit card product. While we are not becoming a bank, we will work with payment processors and other financial partners. This introduces new fraud typologies and risks that are largely unfamiliar today, making it a critical area of focus.

The primary objective of this role is to help define and execute the strategic roadmap for our future-state fraud prevention platform. This individual will play a key role in preparing our technology and processes to support the new debit card offering while also addressing the growing needs of our current fraud platform. They will collaborate closely with other fraud teams and business partners to develop and implement a long-term strategy that positions the organization for future growth.

Ideal Candidate Profile

From an experience standpoint, our highest priority is someone with a Robust background in banking, payments, or a closely related financial services environment. While direct fraud prevention experience would certainly be valuable, it is not a strict requirement. More importantly, we're looking for a highly experienced industry professional who can drive technology strategy and bring best practices to the organization.

Experience with machine learning and artificial intelligence is a significant plus, as both are becoming increasingly central to modern fraud prevention. Our technology environment is primarily AWS-based with JavaScript, but we're less concerned with a specific programming language. We expect a candidate at this level to be comfortable working across mainstream technologies and focused more on architectural strategy than hands-on development.

Hiring Approach

The preference is for this to be a contract-to-hire opportunity. We recognize that can be challenging at this level, but leadership is open to hiring an exceptional candidate directly if the right person is identified. Ultimately, we are looking for candidates who would be robust enough to justify a permanent hire.

rom the staffing perspective, our contract provides flexibility. If a contractor proves to be an outstanding fit, Client has the option to convert them to a full-time employee before the end of the contract. This "try before you buy" approach gives both the hiring manager and the candidate an opportunity to ensure it's the right long-term fit.