Location: Mc Lean, VA, United States

As a Principal Architect on JPMorganChase Global Technology's Chief Technology Office Architecture team, you will help shape, uplift, and evolve the architecture across the CTO portfolio. You will provide specialized expertise to assess, design, and improve architectures for applications, platforms, and critical infrastructure within the CTO organization. You will work directly with engineering teams to address architecture gaps, evaluate control procedures, ensure alignment with target state architecture, and identify risks and opportunities for rationalization. You will also serve as a mentor and trainer for architects within the organization, ensuring proper documentation standards including High-Level Design documents and C4 context diagrams are maintained across the portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Assess and uplift architecture across the CTO portfolio by working directly with engineering teams to design, review, and improve application and platform architectures
• Iterate over large platforms and critical infrastructure to identify architecture gaps, evaluate control procedures, and ensure alignment with target state architecture and firmwide standards
• Conduct architecture risk assessments across the portfolio to identify vulnerabilities, technical debt, and areas requiring remediation or investment
• Identify duplication, redundancy, and rationalization opportunities across the CTO technology landscape and escalate findings to leadership
• Work with engineering teams to prioritize backlog items based on identified architectural risks, compliance requirements, and strategic alignment
• Establish and enforce documentation standards ensuring all applications maintain current High-Level Design (HLD) documents, C4 context diagrams, and architecture artifacts
• Mentor and train architects within the CTO organization on architecture best practices, documentation standards, design patterns, and emerging technologies
• Translate complex technical architecture concepts to engineering teams and leadership to drive informed decision-making and consensus
• Collaborate with enterprise architecture, security, risk, and compliance teams to ensure CTO solutions adhere to firmwide standards and policies
• Evaluate emerging technologies and architectural patterns to recommend adoption, integration, or avoidance based on fit, scalability, and risk
• Facilitate architecture reviews and design sessions with cross-functional teams to drive architectural excellence and knowledge sharing
• Assess the need for threat modeling exercises on an ongoing basis and coordinate threat modeling activities for high-risk applications and platforms

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

• Formal training or certification on software engineering and architecture concepts, or 10+ years applied experience
• Practical experience delivering system design, application development, testing, and operational stability for complex platforms and applications
• Deep understanding of complex, large-scale platforms including distributed systems, microservices, data pipelines, and cloud-native architectures
• Expertise in architecture documentation practices including High-Level Design documents, C4 diagrams, architecture decision records, and design patterns
• Proven ability to assess architecture risks, identify gaps, and develop remediation strategies aligned with business priorities
• Experience evaluating control procedures, security architectures, and compliance frameworks in complex technology environments
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering teams and leadership without direct authority to drive architectural improvements
• Strong analytical skills with ability to identify duplication, rationalization opportunities, and portfolio optimization strategies
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to convey complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
• Experience working across multiple technology domains including infrastructure, applications, data, and cloud platforms
• Ability to mentor and train technical staff on architecture principles, patterns, and best practices