Principal, AI-Native SDLC Architecture

What You'll Do

OCC is transforming how its technology organization builds software. We have deployed AI‑assisted development tools across the firm, enabled citizen development, and established AI governance. The next step is redesigning our software development lifecycle to be AI‑native from the ground up — with graduated, tiered standards that work for everything from personal productivity tools to SCI‑grade production systems.

Research from Stanford, Human Layer, and Qodo consistently finds that the documentation and codified practices sufficient for experienced human developers are not detailed enough to drive consistent results from AI agents. Raising that bar benefits everyone — human developers onboard faster, key‑person risk drops, and cross‑team consistency improves.

This role designs graduated standards and practices detailed enough that any competent developer, human or AI, can consume them and produce working code.

You will design a graduated SDLC framework with prescriptive practice standards at each tier of criticality, pilot with real development teams, and drive adoption across the enterprise. The deliverable is a working development lifecycle — not a document.

This is a rare opportunity to define how a critical financial market utility builds software in the AI era. You will have executive sponsorship, organizational mandate, and the backing to make standards enforceable rather than advisory.

• Define prescriptive practice standards across multiple tiers of development criticality — from personal experimentation through operationally critical, SCI‑adjacent systems
• Establish standards across key dimensions: structure, testing, documentation, error handling, dependencies, storage, review, and operability
• Elevate existing documentation, architecture decisions, integration patterns, and deployment procedures to the level of detail that drives consistent results from both human and AI developers
• Design documentation and testing standards that serve double duty: readable by human developers joining a project and consumable by AI agents starting a coding session
• Encode tier‑appropriate standards into persistent context files (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, planning templates) as a natural output of well‑documented practices — not as a separate AI‑specific exercise
• Design graduation triggers and assessment mechanisms for artifacts moving between tiers

• Create low‑friction pathways for lower‑tier development that enable experimentation without bureaucratic overhead
• Design intake, classification, and registry processes for citizen‑developed tools — visibility without paralysis
• Solve the path from working prototype to supported environment at every tier

• Pilot the graduated SDLC with 2+ development teams, iterating based on real‑world feedback
• Build alignment across Engineering, Architecture, Security, QA, and Governance/Risk functions
• Establish a quarterly organizational learning system where operational data, code review patterns, graduation assessments, and incident post‑mortems feed back into living standards
• Develop training and coaching programs that help developers at every level internalize the standards — not just comply with them

• Provide the practice standards layer underneath the existing governance framework
• Ensure standards satisfy regulatory requirements (Regulation SCI, CPMI‑IOSCO, internal audit)
• Coordinate with enterprise architecture to ensure SDLC standards reflect infrastructure reality

This is a senior individual‑contributor role that leads through influence and organizational authority, not direct management. You will build consensus across multiple functions while being opinionated enough to define standards with teeth. You will have executive sponsorship from the CSO and CIO to make standards enforceable.

• Current SDLC variations assessed. Tier structure validated with stakeholders. Ownership model resolved.

• Practice standards published for…