Architect-Retirement Solutions technology-GDSF04

Architect – Retirement Solutions Technology (BSA Architecture Team)

Role summary

We are looking for a hands-on Product/Solution Architect to join the BSA architecture team supporting key platforms in Retirement Solutions Technology (RST). This architect will shape end‑to‑end solution designs, lead modernization and AI/data initiatives, and partner closely with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to de‑risk complex decisions and accelerate delivery outcomes.

This role is highly collaborative and visible, working across multiple agile lines to ensure our technical strategy, roadmaps, and delivery practices are cohesive and future‑ready.

Team & scope

• Member of the Solution / Product Architecture community for Retirement Solutions, working with other experienced architects on the Solution Architecture Team under NF Architecture.
• Primary focus on plan sponsor and participant experiences, DCDirect, reporting/data, and related integration platforms.
• Partners with product, delivery leaders, and engineering teams to define technical strategy, roadmaps, and build‑to‑run architectures that balance resilience, time‑to‑market, and cost.

Key responsibilities

Recruiters should look for candidates who have done most of the following:

• Define and evolve product/solution roadmaps (application, data, integration, infrastructure) aligned to business strategy, including DevSecOps, automation, observability, and cloud modernization.
• Lead end‑to‑end solution design for new capabilities and major enhancements across web, services/APIs, data, and integration layers, ensuring patterns are reusable and aligned with enterprise standards.
• Drive execution of tech strategy in partnership with delivery leaders, tech leads, and engineers; provide clear guardrails, patterns, and reference implementations.
• Own technical debt, risk, and currency strategy for assigned products/platforms, including maintaining and grooming a tech‑risk and tech‑debt backlog and influencing prioritization of remediation work alongside features.
• Champion production readiness and reliability (resilience, capacity, DR/continuity, monitoring/alerting, performance) and ensure “build‑to‑run” considerations are baked into designs from day one.
• Lead architectural support for AI and data initiatives (e.g., Snowflake Cortex, “reporting is dead” self‑serve insights, contact center of the future, intelligent workflows), including data modeling, integration, and model/agent orchestration patterns.
• Collaborate intensively with business and technology stakeholders in Columbus for whiteboard sessions, design reviews, and decision workshops; support hybrid/onsite engagement as needed to de‑risk complex work.
• Influence and mentor tech leads and engineers on architecture, design practices, and modern engineering (APIs, events, cloud, CI/CD, observability, security).
• Contribute to and consume shared architecture assets (reference architectures, patterns, RACI/ARCI clarity across Product Architect, Solution Architect, Tech Lead, SRE, etc.).

Standard work expectations (how the role shows up week‑to‑week)

This role is expected to operate in line with Nationwide’s Product Architect Standard Work. Recruiters should prioritize candidates who are comfortable with a cadence similar to:

Daily / multiple times per week

• Providing development support: sharing the big picture, helping with skilling, and being hands‑on with teams during kick‑offs and early design.
• Offering delivery consulting: design reviews, capacity planning, and implementation plan reviews for key efforts.
• Participating in line stand‑ups (as capacity allows) to stay close to work, decisions, and issues in the lines they support.
• Driving solutioning, design, planning, and estimation for new intake: researching options, assessing trade‑offs, and producing clear estimates and technical guidance.
• Performing impact analysis for significant changes, identifying upstream/downstream systems and SMEs.
• Maintaining architecture decision documentation (ADRs/AWDs) for larger or more complex use cases using standard templates and repositories.

Weekly

• Participating in architecture and team meetings to raise risks/blockers, recognize wins, and ensure alignment across architects and leaders.
• Connecting regularly with Tech Leads and Quality Engineers to review NFRs, validate that solutions being built match agreed designs, and address gaps.
• Providing project support through design/review sessions, solution scoping, and architecture recommendations.
• Consulting on technology resiliency and security architecture to ensure availability, scalability, and secure designs are considered early.

Bi‑weekly / monthly

• Reviewing and prioritizing technical risk and currency (ETRM, tech risk, and tech‑debt inventory) with SEPM, SEL, TIAs, TDLs, IRM, and other partners.
• Participating in backlog grooming and show‑and‑tell sessions (or reviewing recordings) to stay connected to execution and outcomes.
• Investing in individual and group learning to grow both technical and soft skills, and staying current on architecture standards, tooling, and practices.
• Building business acumen by attending business capability demos and customer‑journey discussions.
• Maintaining and updating architecture diagrams and documentation, including centralized repositories (e.g., GitHub architecture repos, architecture SharePoint sites).

Quarterly and beyond

• Supporting quarterly and annual planning by contributing to planning discussions, building and sharing roadmaps, and developing or refining business cases.
• Identifying and shaping technology innovation and POC opportunities in partnership with innovation and business teams.
• Participating in architecture profession activities (Decision Velocity, profession meetings, solution design reviews) and contributing to community‑wide alignment on patterns and standards.
• Mentoring and coaching aspiring architects and engineers, helping build the talent pipeline for the architecture profession.
• Engaging broadly with peer professions and communities of practice (e.g., engineering, EDO, I&O, cloud) to share learnings and stay aligned with enterprise direction.

Ad‑hoc expectations

• Supporting vendor selection and procurement (evaluating options, applying technology standards, advising on SaaS and product choices).
• Participating in interviews and onboarding for software engineers and architects, and coaching new hires.
• Leading or contributing to POCs and experiments, including being comfortable with “fail‑fast” learning to solidify solution approaches.
• Providing architecture input for audits and security risk management (Fulcrum/Archer exceptions, vulnerabilities, mitigation planning).
• Consulting on critical or complex production incidents, including reviewing logs and patterns and helping teams arrive at durable fixes.

Required experience & qualifications

Recruiters should prioritize candidates with:

• 10+ years of overall software engineering experience, including 5+ years in an architect, lead engineer, or solution designer role on complex, distributed systems.
• Strong track record designing API‑centric and event‑driven architectures (REST/JSON, GraphQL, messaging, streaming, pub/sub).
• Demonstrated experience with cloud‑hosted workloads (ideally AWS) and understanding of cost, reliability, and capacity management (e.g., Cloudability, autoscaling, resilience patterns).
• Hands‑on experience with data and analytics platforms, ideally including Snowflake or similar, and patterns for powering self‑service reporting/insights and AI use cases.
• Background in financial services; retirement/401(k)/recordkeeping, contact centers, or plan sponsor/participant experiences is a strong plus.
• Proven ability to work across multiple agile teams and influence without authority—comfortable operating in a matrix with product, delivery, and engineering leaders.
• Experience embedding DevSecOps, CI/CD, test automation, monitoring, and observability practices into designs and delivery approaches.

Preferred skills & attributes

Nice‑to‑have signals for recruiters:

• Experience as a Product Architect or Solution Architect in a multi‑product portfolio, balancing platform health with feature delivery.
• Exposure to AI/ML and agentic workflows (e.g., using AI for insights, workflow automation, intelligent chat/voice, or code/ops acceleration).
• Comfortable facilitating whiteboard sessions, architecture reviews, and executive‑facing discussions, translating between business outcomes and technical options.
• Strong mentoring and coaching mindset; able to uplevel teams in modern architecture and engineering practices and contribute actively to the Architecture Profession community.

Recruiter guidance & search keywords

Target companies / backgrounds - Financial services, retirement/401(k), asset management, insurance, or large‑scale B2C/B2B digital platforms.

Prior experience in product/solution architecture or lead engineer roles on cloud‑based, API‑driven platforms.

Example search strings

• “(product architect OR solution architect) AND (APIs OR microservices OR event-driven) AND (AWS OR cloud) AND (financial services OR retirement)”
• “(application architect OR platform architect) AND (Snowflake OR data platform) AND (contact center OR customer experience)”
• “(hands-on architect) AND (DevSecOps OR CI/CD OR observability) AND (Columbus OR Ohio)”

These should surface candidates similar in caliber to the existing Solution Architecture Team under Kirty, with the ability to immediately contribute to RST modernization and AI‑driven initiatives and to operate in alignment with Nationwide’s Product Architect Standard Work.