Director, Platform Architect Principal - Investment Operations, Sales & Distribution

Your Opportunity

At Schwab, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.

We believe in the importance of in-office collaboration and fully intend for the selected candidate for this role to work on site in the specified location(s).

Schwab Technology Services enables the future of how clients manage their money by providing innovative and reliable technology products and services as a part of our ongoing commitment to democratize access to investing and financial planning.

We are seeking a Senior Investment Management Operations & Distribution Platform Architect to lead architecture strategy and platform modernization across the Middle Office, Back Office, and Sales & Distribution ecosystem supporting ETFs, Mutual Funds, Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs), and Alternative Investments.

This senior leadership role will define the target-state architecture, drive platform transformation, and enable seamless integration across operations, distribution, CRM, data, and investment platforms. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in investment management operations, enterprise architecture, cloud technologies, and large-scale transformation programs.

The role requires close partnership with business leaders, operations teams, product managers, architects, and engineering teams to deliver scalable, secure, and resilient solutions that advance Schwab Asset Management's strategic objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture Strategy & Leadership

• Define and evolve the target-state architecture, technology strategy, and multi-year roadmap for Investment Operations and Distribution platforms, aligned to business priorities, operating models, regulatory requirements, and enterprise standards.
• Lead architecture governance, design reviews, technology assessments, and platform modernization initiatives across the application portfolio.
• Drive platform operating model transformation through capability-based architecture, platform ownership, shared services adoption, and rationalization of redundant technology capabilities.
• Establish architecture principles, integration patterns, reference architectures, and reusable platform capabilities to promote consistency, scalability, and reuse.
• Lead major architecture and platform decisions for strategic business initiatives, ensuring alignment across investment operations, distribution, data, and enterprise technology ecosystems.
• Simplify legacy technology landscapes and accelerate adoption of scalable, resilient, cloud-native architectures.

Investment Operations and Distribution Domain Architecture

• Strong experience supporting Investment operations and distribution domains.
• Investment Operations & Fund Administration:
  Trade lifecycle management, settlement, reconciliations, corporate actions, exception management, fund accounting, valuations, and custody operations.
• Middle Office & Investment Accounting: IBOR, ABOR, investment accounting, operational data flows, and middle-office transformation initiatives.
• Performance, Analytics & Regulatory Reporting:
  Performance measurement, attribution, operational analytics, regulatory reporting, and compliance capabilities.
• Alternative Investments Operations:
  Alternative investment servicing, fund operations, custody, trading, and associated operational workflows.
• Distribution, Sales & Marketing Platforms:
  Product onboarding, lifecycle management, CRM, sales enablement, distribution operations, marketing platforms, and client engagement capabilities.
• Industry Platforms & Ecosystems:
  Experience with leading investment management platforms and service providers such as Aladdin, Vestmark One, State Street, Rimes, SS&C, iCapital, and similar industry solutions.

Engineering Excellence & Hands-On Technical Leadership

• Partner with engineering teams and solution architects to design, modernize, and deliver scalable, resilient, and secure platform solutions.
• Provide technical leadership across APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, integration patterns, cloud-native platforms, and distributed systems.
• Lead architecture validation activities, including technology assessments, proof-of-concepts, design reviews, and resolution of complex performance, scalability, resiliency, and integration challenges.
• Champion modern engineering practices, including CI/CD, automated testing, security-by-design, observability, reliability engineering, and operational excellence.
• Collaborate with platform engineering, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and SRE teams to improve platform scalability, resilience, and operational effectiveness.
• Assess existing platforms and architectures to identify modernization opportunities, capability gaps, technical debt, and operational risks.

Cloud, Data & AI Architecture

• Lead the design and deployment of applications on GCP and PCF platforms.
• Define cloud-native patterns leveraging containers, automation,…