About the Role
We are seeking an exceptional Senior Vice President (SVP), Chief Architect & Head of Core Development to lead the design, evolution, and delivery of the company's core technology platforms. This role will serve as the highest technical authority within the engineering organization, responsible for defining enterprise architecture, driving engineering excellence, and leading the development of mission-critical financial infrastructure that powers our payments, digital assets, treasury, card, lending, and embedded finance businesses.
The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with strong leadership capabilities and has successfully built and scaled high-performance financial systems in fintech, banking, payments, or digital asset environments.
Reporting directly to the CTO, this individual will oversee architecture governance, core platform engineering, technical strategy, and engineering execution across multiple product domains.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Architecture Leadership
- Define and maintain the company's enterprise technology architecture and technical standards.
- Establish long-term architecture roadmaps aligned with business growth, regulatory requirements, and scalability objectives.
- Lead architecture reviews and governance processes across all engineering teams.
- Drive modernization initiatives and technology transformation programs.
- Ensure platform interoperability, extensibility, resilience, and maintainability.
Core Platform Development
- Lead the design, development, and optimization of the company's core financial infrastructure, including:Payment processing platformsCross-border remittance systemsCard issuing and acquiring platformsDigital asset infrastructureTreasury and liquidity management systemsCustomer account and ledger platformsSettlement and reconciliation enginesCompliance and risk management systemsAPI and embedded finance platforms
- Ensure platforms meet enterprise-grade requirements for availability, performance, security, and scalability.
- Drive the evolution toward modular, API-first, cloud-native architecture.
Technical Leadership & Engineering Excellence
- Act as the company's principal technology expert and architecture authority.
- Provide technical leadership across engineering, product, infrastructure, security, and data teams.
- Establish engineering standards, coding frameworks, and software development best practices.
- Lead technical design reviews, architecture discussions, and solution evaluations.
- Promote a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Distributed Systems & Platform Scalability
- Design highly scalable distributed systems capable of supporting millions of transactions and customers.
- Optimize system performance, reliability, and operational efficiency.
- Drive adoption of:Microservices architectureEvent-driven systemsDomain-driven designCloud-native technologiesDevSecOps practicesHigh-availability and disaster recovery frameworks
- Ensure systems meet stringent SLAs and operational requirements.
Regulatory & Security Architecture
- Partner closely with Compliance, Risk, and Security teams to ensure regulatory readiness.
- Architect solutions that support:AML/CFT controlsTransaction monitoringKYC/KYB infrastructureAudit and reporting requirementsData privacy regulationsCybersecurity standards
- Ensure technology platforms are designed to support current and future licensing requirements across multiple jurisdictions.
Engineering Organization Leadership
- Lead and mentor senior engineering managers, architects, and technical leads.
- Build strong architecture and engineering leadership capabilities across the organization.
- Establish career development frameworks and technical leadership pathways.
- Drive hiring and development of top-tier engineering talent.
- Foster collaboration across product, engineering, operations, and business teams.
Innovation & Technology Strategy
- Evaluate emerging technologies and assess applicability to business objectives.
- Drive adoption of AI, automation, data platforms, and next-generation financial infrastructure.
- Lead proof-of-concept initiatives and strategic technology investments.
- Act as a trusted advisor to executive leadership on technology opportunities and risks.
Requirements
Experience
- 15+ years of software engineering and architecture experience.
- 8+ years leading large-scale engineering organizations and architecture teams.
- Proven experience designing and delivering mission-critical financial systems.
- Strong track record in fintech, banking, payments, capital markets, digital assets, or financial infrastructure organizations.
- Experience managing engineering teams across multiple countries and time zones.
- Demonstrated success leading large-scale platform modernization and transformation initiatives.
Technical Expertise
Architecture & Engineering
- Deep expertise in:Distributed systems architectureEvent-driven architecturesService-oriented and microservices platformsAPI gateway and integration architectureHigh-performance transaction systemsReal-time processing platformsMulti-tenant SaaS architecture
Cloud & Infrastructure
- Extensive experience with:AWS, Azure, or GCPKubernetes and container orchestrationCI/CD pipelinesInfrastructure-as-CodeObservability and monitoring platformsSite Reliability Engineering (SRE)
Data & Security
- Strong understanding of:Enterprise data architectureData governance and analyticsSecurity architectureEncryption and key managementIdentity and access managementRegulatory compliance frameworks
Domain Knowledge (Preferred)
Experience in one or more of the following areas:
- Cross-border payments
- Card issuing and acquiring
- Digital assets and blockchain infrastructure
- Banking core systems
- Treasury and liquidity management
- Lending platforms
- Embedded finance
- RegTech and compliance systems
Leadership Competencies
- Strategic technology vision
- Strong architectural judgment
- Exceptional problem-solving abilities
- Ability to influence executive stakeholders
- Strong communication and leadership skills
- Commercial and business-oriented mindset
- Ability to balance innovation with operational excellence
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Platform availability and reliability
- Engineering delivery velocity
- Architecture governance compliance
- Technical debt reduction
- Infrastructure scalability and performance
- Security and audit outcomes
- System cost optimization
- Engineering talent retention and development
- Successful launch of strategic platform initiatives
Reporting Structure
Reports To
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Direct Reports
- Principal Architects
- Engineering Directors
- Core Platform Engineering Managers
- Architecture Governance Team
- Technical Program Managers
Organization Coverage
- Enterprise Architecture
- Core Platform Engineering
- Payments Infrastructure
- Digital Asset Infrastructure
- API Platform
- Shared Services Engineering
- Engineering Excellence & Standards
Why This Role Matters
This role serves as the technical backbone of the organization, ensuring that the company's financial infrastructure remains scalable, secure, resilient, and capable of supporting future growth across multiple regulated businesses. The SVP, Chief Architect & Head of Core Development will be instrumental in shaping the next generation of our technology platform while building a world-class engineering organization capable of competing on a global stage.
