Principal Architect – Front Office Trading Technology

UBS; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 2,400,000 - 3,600,000; Full time

Job summary

UBS is seeking an experienced Principal Architect for its Hong Kong front-office trading technology stack. You will provide architectural leadership across trading platforms, govern solutions, and influence modernization initiatives with a hands-on engineering mindset.

Role requires 15+ years in investment banking tech, strong governance experience, and the ability to drive performance, resilience, and regulatory alignment across complex environments.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience designing, delivering, or supporting technology solutions within investment banking or electronic trading environments.
• Strong architectural judgment with experience in governance and ARB reviews.
• Hands-on technical credibility to engage engineering teams on complex challenges.

Responsibilities

• Act as the senior architecture authority for front-office trading platforms and strategic technology initiatives.
• Own architecture standards, roadmaps, governance, and design artefacts.
• Lead architecture reviews through ARB and governance forums.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise architecture, security, resilience, and regulatory standards.
• Drive architectural simplification, consistency, reuse, and long‑term technology alignment.

Skills

Architecture governance

Front-office trading tech

Low-latency trading

Technical leadership

Stakeholder collaboration

AI & automation in engineering

Tools

Corvil

OMS/EMS platforms

Job description

Key Responsibilities

We are looking for an experienced technologist with 15+ years of experience in front-office and trading technology who combines strong architectural judgment with practical engineering experience.

Job Type

Full Time

Job Reference #

341722BR

City

Hong Kong SAR

Key Responsibilities

We are looking for an experienced technologist with 15+ years of experience in front-office and trading technology who combines strong architectural judgment with practical engineering experience.

As a Principal Architect, you will provide architectural leadership and governance across the front-office trading technology landscape. You will be responsible for reviewing, challenging, approving, and governing technology solutions, ensuring they align with business objectives, engineering standards, operational resilience requirements, and regulatory obligations.

You will act as a trusted technical authority across the full trading lifecycle, leveraging real-world experience from large-scale trading environments to influence critical architectural decisions, modernization initiatives, and technology investments.

This role combines architecture governance with hands‑on technical credibility. While a significant portion of the role involves maintaining architecture artefacts, driving Architecture Review Board (ARB) approvals, and supporting governance processes, you must also possess the depth and experience to engage engineering teams on complex technical challenges when required.

The successful candidate will be expected to challenge solutions not only from an architecture perspective, but also through the lenses of performance, scalability, resiliency, operability, risk, security, compliance and latency, drawing upon practical experience operating business‑critical trading platforms in production.

The team

Architecture Leadership & Governance

• Act as the senior architecture authority for front-office trading platforms and strategic technology initiatives.
• Own architecture standards, roadmaps, governance, and design artefacts.
• Lead architecture reviews through ARB and governance forums.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise architecture, security, resilience, and regulatory standards.
• Drive architectural simplification, consistency, reuse, and long‑term technology alignment.

Technical Leadership

Influence solution design through deep technical and engineering expertise.

Provide architectural oversight across OMS, execution platforms, market connectivity, market data, risk controls, trade processing, and supporting infrastructure.

Evaluate solutions for scalability, resilience, performance, security, observability, supportability, and cost efficiency.

Partner with engineering, infrastructure, security, risk, and business stakeholders to deliver pragmatic technology outcomes.

Performance, Scalability & Capacity Management

Lead architecture for scalability, capacity planning, and sustainable platform growth.

Ensure platforms can support increasing volumes, peak market events, and regulatory change.

Drive performance optimization, operational efficiency, and simplification.

Leverage observability, telemetry, and analytics to support capacity forecasting and resolve systemic bottlenecks.

Cloud, AI Adoption & Platform Modernization

Guide adoption of cloud, hybrid, and modern architecture patterns.

Drive modernization initiatives while balancing risk, performance, regulatory, and business requirements.

Champion automation, platform engineering, resilience, observability, and operational excellence.

Enable responsible AI adoption, establishing governance and guardrails in partnership with senior technology leaders

Challenges

Balancing engineering pragmatism with governance, regulatory, and risk management requirements.

Influencing technology direction across multiple teams without direct ownership.

Supporting modernization initiatives while maintaining highly resilient and business‑critical trading platforms.

Navigating a complex stakeholder environment involving technology, business, risk, compliance, architecture, and operations teams.

Making architectural decisions where performance, resilience, cost, and delivery priorities often compete.

Growth Opportunities

Shape the architectural direction of mission‑critical trading platforms used across global markets.

Influence strategic technology investment decisions and modernization roadmaps.

Drive adoption of next‑generation cloud, AI, automation, and platform engineering capabilities.

Gain broad exposure across trading, infrastructure, cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, and senior technology leadership.

Establish yourself as a trusted technical authority within one of the most complex and demanding technology environments in the industry.

Your Skills And Experience

• 15+ years of experience designing, delivering, or supporting technology solutions within investment banking, capital markets, or electronic trading environments, including practical experience with low‑latency trading and latency‑sensitive platforms.
• Deep understanding of the end‑to‑end trade lifecycle and its architectural impact across front, middle, and back‑office platforms, with strong knowledge of OMS/EMS platforms and front‑office trading architectures.
• Proven experience operating within complex, regulated financial institutions, balancing business objectives with risk, control, and APAC governance or regulatory requirements.
• Strong track record leading architecture governance, ARB reviews, and strategic technology decisions for business‑critical platforms, with the ability to provide effective architectural challenge when required.
• Hands‑on technical background with the ability to influence design decisions, challenge engineering teams, engage in deep technical discussions, and perform technical deep dives.
• Experience collaborating across Front Office, Product, Operations, Infrastructure, Risk, Compliance, Security, and Enterprise Architecture functions.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, event‑driven architectures, messaging platforms, sequencing technologies, and high‑volume, mission‑critical enterprise platforms.
• Proven experience in capacity planning, platform scaling, and performance optimization for enterprise‑scale systems, including application, infrastructure, middleware, messaging, and network performance tuning.
• Familiarity with network telemetry, transaction tracing, packet capture analysis, and tools such as Corvil, with the ability to assess architectural decisions from both application and infrastructure performance perspectives.
• Passion for applying AI and intelligent automation to enhance engineering productivity, software delivery, operational support, architecture governance, platform engineering, and AI‑assisted development, including some experience evaluating emerging AI technologies and identifying practical automation and efficiency opportunities.

About Us

UBS is a leading and truly global wealth manager and the leading universal bank in Switzerland. We also provide diversified asset management solutions and focused investment banking capabilities. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, UBS is present in more than 50 markets around the globe.

We know that great work is never done alone. That’s why we place collaboration at the heart of everything we do. Because together, we’re more than ourselves.

Join us

At UBS, we know that it's our people, with their diverse skills, experiences and backgrounds, who drive our ongoing success. We’re dedicated to our craft and passionate about putting our people first, with new challenges, a supportive team, opportunities to grow and flexible working options when possible. Our inclusive culture brings out the best in our employees, wherever they are on their career journey. And we use artificial intelligence (AI) to work smarter and more efficiently. We also recognize that great work is never done alone. That’s why collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. Because together, we’re more than ourselves.

We’re committed to disability inclusion and if you need reasonable accommodation/adjustments throughout our recruitment process, you can always contact us.

Contact Details

UBS Business Solutions SA

UBS Recruiting

Disclaimer / Policy statements

UBS is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We respect and seek to empower each individual and support the diverse cultures, perspectives, skills and experiences within our workforce.