Principal Architect - FinTech Lending (Java/AWS/PostgreSQL)

Job Description

Job Description: Principal Architect – FinTech Lending (Java/AWS/PostgreSQL)

Location: Mountain View, CA (Hybrid 3 days work from office)

Start: ASAP

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal Architect to partner closely with the FinTech organization—specifically the Lending team within a broader group that supports real-time payments, wallets, lending, and related financial capabilities. This person will quickly build deep technical context, evaluate the current platform, and drive a clear modernization and next-steps plan.

What You’ll Do

• Deeply understand the current codebase and implementation for the FinTech Lending domain (services, APIs, data models, integrations, and operational patterns).
• Build a comprehensive technical view of the system: architecture, dependencies, performance, security, reliability, and scalability.
• Identify gaps, risks, and improvement opportunities (design, data, cloud, observability, resiliency, cost, compliance).
• Produce a clear recommendation and execution plan: target architecture, phased roadmap, tradeoffs, and prioritized next steps.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and platform stakeholders to align on strategy and guide implementation.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong hands-on architecture experience with Java (backend/services), AWS, and PostgreSQL.
• Proven ability to ramp quickly on complex systems and document / communicate architecture clearly.
• Experience designing or leading cloud-native platforms (microservices, APIs, security, scalability, reliability).
• FinTech Lending domain knowledge (must-have) — understanding of lending lifecycle, credit decisioning, servicing, and compliance considerations.

Nice to Have

• Experience with event-driven systems (Kafka/SNS/SQS), distributed systems, and observability (metrics/logs/tracing).
• Familiarity with regulatory/security practices relevant to financial products (auditability, data protection, access controls).

Examples of FinTech Lending (what “domain knowledge” means)

A Principal Architect with lending domain experience typically understands systems such as:

• Loan origination: digital applications, document upload, e-sign, eligibility checks
• Underwriting / credit decisioning: credit bureau pulls, income verification, risk scoring, rules engines, approvals/declines
• Pricing & offers: APR, term, credit limits, risk-based pricing, offer generation
• Disbursement/funding: sending funds to bank accounts/cards/merchants; integration with payment rails
• Servicing: repayment schedules, statements, amortization, interest calculations, customer support workflows
• Collections: delinquency handling, reminders, hardship plans, recoveries, charge-offs
• Compliance & audit: disclosures, data retention, audit trails, identity verification (KYC), fraud checks

Lending + wallet/payments integration: using a wallet balance for repayments, real-time payment posting, ledger consistency