Staff Architect

American Express; Burgess Hill; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

American Express seeks a Staff Architect for their GMNST team to lead initiatives in payments technology. The role demands extensive experience in software development, leadership, and expertise in payment systems. Join a mission to drive innovation and ensure high-quality solutions at a global scale.

Benefits

Competitive base salaries

Bonus incentives

Health insurance benefits

Flexible working model

Generous parental leave policies

Free access to wellness centers

Career development opportunities

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software development.
• Expertise in Card Payments and payment industry standards.
• In-depth knowledge of Java, Go, REST APIs, and Kafka.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of Solution Architects and drive technology vision.
• Communicate with senior leaders on strategy and direction.
• Mentor engineers to implement solutions with high quality.

Skills

Java

REST APIs

Kafka

Cassandra

PostgreSQL

Payment Tokenization

Digital Wallets

High throughput applications

Leadership

Analytical skills

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Advanced Degree preferred

Job description

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

At American Express our Global Merchant and Network Services Technology (GMNST) team relies increasingly on the deep expertise and experience of a core team of subject matter experts in payments technology. Our Solutions Architects have both deep technical and strategic business knowledge. But they’re of one mind about using their experience, expertise and vision to drive better business outcomes. We value deep and broad knowledge of this domain in which we excel, provide solutions and consultancy to our product teams, and be great collaborators and communicators.

How will you make an impact in this role?

If you have the talent and desire to drive innovation at a rapid pace, with hands-on experience in areas of real time, high availability, and highly scalable application development, join our Solution Architecture team to help architect initiatives across the department using the latest computing techniques. We are looking for an enthusiastic, driven, and forward-thinking Staff Architect to join our mission and lead a small team of architects working on a variety of payments initiatives.

Key accounts:

• Serve as forward thinking leader within the GMNST Solution Architecture leadership team, actively participating in enterprise-wide strategic discussions, inspiring change, and helping to drive vital enhancements.
• Lead a team of Solution Architects who drive the technology vision, architecture and design for multiple products, and software utilities across our platforms, ensuring they meet the evolving needs of American Express, our merchants and our Global Network Partners.
• Introduce enterprise architectural paradigms and solutions into the portfolio.
• Drive both high level and detailed design and conduct design reviews
• Communicate to senior leaders regarding strategy direction and changes.
• Mentor engineers and solution architects to ensure technology complexities are understood very clearly to implement solutions expeditiously with high quality.

Minimum Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software development in a complex environment and/or comparable experience.
• Subject Matter Expertise in Card Payments, including Authorization, Clearing and Settlement, Payment Tokenization and Digital Wallets
• Knowledge of payment industry standards, including: ISO 8583, EMV 3D Secure and PCI DSS
• In-depth knowledge of multiple of the following: Java, Go, REST APIs, Kafka, Cassandra, PostgreSQL, Caches (Elastic/Redis), Public and Private Cloud infrastructure.
• Extensive experience in designing and implementing large scale platforms with high resiliency, availability, and reliability.
• Strong experience in applications with high throughput and performance
• Strong written, verbal communications, presentation skills, leadership, problem solving and analytical skills.
• Proven collaboration skills along with the ability to influence without authority.
• High degree of technical expertise related to the core components of the tech stack.
• Expertise in building highly available, fault-tolerant, scalable solutions that perform at a global enterprise scale.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Science Engineering, or related field required; Advanced Degree preferred.

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries
• Bonus incentives
• Support for financial-well-being and retirement
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location)
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
• Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location)
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.