MuleSoft API Principal Engineer I

Western Alliance Bank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

401(k) matching

Medical and dental insurance

Tuition assistance

Job summary

Western Alliance Bank is seeking a Principal MuleSoft API Engineer to lead complex API design for payment processing, with focus on secure and scalable solutions across cloud and on-prem deployments.

You will drive architecture, implement APIs, and guide teams to adopt GenAI-assisted development, while ensuring adherence to security, compliance, and data interoperability standards.

Qualifications

• Extensive API design and integration knowledge
• Experience with MuleSoft and API gateways
• Strong understanding of security best practices for financial APIs
• Familiarity with cloud and on-prem deployment strategies

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement MuleSoft APIs for payment processing
• Lead adoption of AI-assisted API design using GenAI tools
• Develop resilient API architectures with zero-downtime deployments
• Ensure API security, compliance, and data interoperability

Job description

What You'll Do

As a Principal Engineer I you'll provide your expert-level knowledge as the established authority in your domain as well as extensive knowledge across multiple domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant, and reliable. You'll lead large and complex design efforts supporting critical projects and solutions while engaging with project and business sponsors defining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions. As a Principal Engineer II, you'll also engage in the facilitation of dialogue and large team activities, while ensuring collaboration to include teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for business stakeholders and IT audiences.

• Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible.
• Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives.
• Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank which can feed operational results of our business partners while enforcing IT standards, and may modify or build procedures that support areas of operations across IT.
• Work independently or partner with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper, ongoing reference of the given solution to include physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models.
• Architect, design, and implement MuleSoft APIs for high-performance, scalable, and secure payment processing.
• Lead the adoption of AI-assisted API design and development using GenAI tools (e.g., MuleSoft AI, GitHub Copilot, internal LLMs) to accelerate API creation, reduce development cycle time, and improve code consistency across the Payments API landscape.
• Optimize vCore utilization for cost efficiency, resource allocation, and high availability.
• Develop resilient and fault-tolerant API architectures, ensuring zero-downtime deployments and disaster recovery strategies.
• Lead full API lifecycle management, from development and security hardening to deployment and maintenance.
• Implement API security best practices, including OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS, certificate-based authentication, and encryption standards for financial transactions.
• Ensure adherence to FDX (Financial Data Exchange) standards for secure financial data interoperability.
• Build event-driven architectures utilizing Kafka for high-throughput and low-latency transaction processing.
• Implement NoSQL database integration (MongoDB, Azure CosmosDB) for flexible and scalable data storage solutions.
• Develop observability frameworks with ELK to monitor API performance, security, and anomalies.
• Optimize MuleSoft worker configurations, clustering, and autoscaling strategies for CloudHub deployments. Need to come up with strategy for future hybrid deployments – Cloud hub and On-prem
• Implement MuleSoft High Availability (HA) clustering and load balancing to ensure resilience and failover capabilities.
• Enforce security policies and compliance controls specific to MuleSoft API gateways.
• Design and develop APIs using Azure API Management (APIM) to enforce consistent security, rate limiting, versioning, and lifecycle governance while enabling scalable, reusable, and well-managed API consumption across platforms.

Job Title

MuleSoft API Principal Engineer I

Location

Block 23

What You'll Do

As a Principal Engineer I you'll provide your expert-level knowledge as the established authority in your domain as well as extensive knowledge across multiple domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant, and reliable. You'll lead large and complex design efforts supporting critical projects and solutions while engaging with project and business sponsors defining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions. As a Principal Engineer II, you'll also engage in the facilitation of dialogue and large team activities, while ensuring collaboration to include teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for business stakeholders and IT audiences.

• Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible.
• Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives.
• Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank which can feed operational results of our business partners while enforcing IT standards, and may modify or build procedures that support areas of operations across IT.
• Work independently or partner with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper, ongoing reference of the given solution to include physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models.
• Architect, design, and implement MuleSoft APIs for high-performance, scalable, and secure payment processing.
• Lead the adoption of AI-assisted API design and development using GenAI tools (e.g., MuleSoft AI, GitHub Copilot, internal LLMs) to accelerate API creation, reduce development cycle time, and improve code consistency across the Payments API landscape.
• Optimize vCore utilization for cost efficiency, resource allocation, and high availability.
• Develop resilient and fault-tolerant API architectures, ensuring zero-downtime deployments and disaster recovery strategies.
• Lead full API lifecycle management, from development and security hardening to deployment and maintenance.
• Implement API security best practices, including OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS, certificate-based authentication, and encryption standards for financial transactions.
• Ensure adherence to FDX (Financial Data Exchange) standards for secure financial data interoperability.
• Build event-driven architectures utilizing Kafka for high-throughput and low-latency transaction processing.
• Implement NoSQL database integration (MongoDB, Azure CosmosDB) for flexible and scalable data storage solutions.
• Develop observability frameworks with ELK to monitor API performance, security, and anomalies.
• Optimize MuleSoft worker configurations, clustering, and autoscaling strategies for CloudHub deployments. Need to come up with strategy for future hybrid deployments – Cloud hub and On-prem
• Implement MuleSoft High Availability (HA) clustering and load balancing to ensure resilience and failover capabilities.
• Enforce security policies and compliance controls specific to MuleSoft API gateways.
• Design and develop APIs using Azure API Management (APIM) to enforce consistent security, rate limiting, versioning, and lifecycle governance while enabling scalable, reusable, and well-managed API consumption across platforms.

What You’ll Need

• 8+ years of related experience.
• Bachelor's degree in related field required; Masters or MBA in related field preferred.
• Previous leadership experience preferred.
• Advanced to expert knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking is preferred.
• Advanced to expert knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards and practices.
• Advanced to expert experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously with an established expertise in one or more key domains of the bank (Deposits, Loans, Operations or Reporting) with the ability to walk-through top-level process design. Capable of working with regulatory partners like the CFPB, OCC and FRB through audits and collaboration efforts as situations arise.
• Advanced to expert familiarity with the capability model across IT and the applications and infrastructures available for engagement in solutioning across the bank to develop results that leverage existing capabilities in addition to implementing new solutions when required. Experience in the design, enhancement and compliance to all governance frameworks across the IT organization to ensure proper compliance to published procedures and standards.
• Advanced speaking and writing communication skills.

Benefits You’ll Love

We offer all the important things you'd want — like competitive salaries, an ownership stake in the company, medical and dental insurance, time off, a great 401k matching program, tuition assistance program, an employee volunteer program, and a wellness program. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to bolster your business knowledge, learning the ins and outs of how successful companies operate and manage their finances, giving you invaluable hands‑on experience to help grow your career!

About The Company

Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation. Serving clients nationwide, Western Alliance Bank includes six legacy bank brands — Alliance Association Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank and Torrey Pines Bank — that remain part of the company’s heritage, as well as AmeriHome Mortgage, a Western Alliance Bank Company.

Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment and will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, nation origin, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information. Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process and/or need an alternative method of applying, please email [e-mail] or call 602-386-2488. When contacting us, please provide your contact information and state the nature of your accessibility issue. We will only respond to inquiries concerning requests that involve a reasonable accommodation in the application process.

© Western Alliance Bancorporation