Principal Data Architect

First Citizens Bank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

First Citizens Bank seeks a Principal Data Architect to lead end-to-end data architecture strategy across General Banking, Commercial, and Digital Bank domains. You will set target-state data architecture, integration patterns, metadata, and governance, partnering with business, risk, compliance, product, and ED&A stakeholders.

The role requires deep banking domain experience, cloud data platform knowledge (Snowflake, AWS, Databricks), and the ability to translate complex requirements into

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 10+ years in IT leadership or data architecture
• 15+ years in data architecture or related disciplines
• Experience across banking data ecosystems and cloud platforms
• Strong ability to influence senior stakeholders

Responsibilities

• Lead data architecture strategy and governance.
• Provide technical direction for data infrastructure and analytics.
• Collaborate with diverse stakeholders and Enterprise Architecture Review Board.
• Define target-state data architecture and data product designs.

Skills

Data architecture

Cloud platforms

Data governance

Stakeholder influence

Banking domain knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher

Master’s degree (CS/IS/Engineering)

Tools

Snowflake

AWS

Databricks

Azure

APIs

Job description

Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Data Architect to lead the end-to-end data architecture strategy, standards, and decision-making for the bank’s General Bank, Commercial Bank, and Digital Bank domains. This role will serve as the accountable Data Architecture leader within ED&A for customer, relationship, account, product, channel, transaction, lending, deposits, payments, servicing, digital engagement, and operational banking data ecosystems.

Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Data Architect to lead the end-to-end data architecture strategy, standards, and decision-making for the bank’s General Bank, Commercial Bank, and Digital Bank domains. This role will serve as the accountable Data Architecture leader within ED&A for customer, relationship, account, product, channel, transaction, lending, deposits, payments, servicing, digital engagement, and operational banking data ecosystems.

The Principal Data Architect will define target-state data architecture, integration strategies, metadata and lineage expectations, domain-aligned data product designs, and enterprise data platform adoption patterns that enable trusted, reusable, scalable, and governed data across the bank. The role requires deep banking domain experience, strong understanding of commercial and digital banking processes, and the ability to translate complex business, regulatory, risk, operational, and customer experience requirements into durable data architecture outcomes.

This leader will partner with senior business, technology, data governance, risk, compliance, product, operations, digital, and ED&A stakeholders to ensure bank data is complete, controlled, fit-for-purpose, traceable, reusable, and aligned with enterprise data strategy and modern cloud data platform capabilities.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

Duties & Responsibilities:

Business Strategy - Drives data management architectural vision and strategy to support business needs. Designs and integrates key systems that change overall corporate data strategy and direction. Facilitates the development and evolution of architecture and enterprise governance processes.

Consultation - Provides technical direction for the Bank's annual investment in all data technology areas, including data infrastructure, architecture, management, integration, quality, reporting, and analytics. Offers guidance to application development teams within the department.

Collaboration - Communicates a clear vision for management and senior technical staff to ensure maximum leverage of both purchased and developed technology. Collaborates effectively to solve complex technical problems and create data strategies. Serves as a member of the Enterprise Architecture Review Board.

Technical Expertise - Maintains strong current knowledge of key advances, data technology, industry trends, and systems development techniques. Utilizes expertise to partner on the design of enterprise data solutions, planning technology migrations, vendor or product selection, and solution integration. Engage key data technology vendors to learn industry best practices and future trends.

Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree and 10 years of experience in Application Development, Systems Engineering, or Information Technology management OR High School Diploma or GED and 14 years of experience in Application Development, Systems Engineering, or Information Technology management

Technology Experience

Desired experience with legacy and cloud data technologies such as Netezza, DataStage, SSIS, Denodo, AWS, Snowflake, DBT, Qlik Replicate, Astronomer, APIs, event streaming, CDC patterns, Power BI, Tableau, reporting platforms, analytics platforms, data catalogs, lineage tools, data quality tools, and governed self-service data consumption capabilities.

Domain Experience Required

The successful candidate must bring meaningful banking domain experience and be able to operate as a trusted architecture partner to Commercial Banking, General Banking, Digital Banking, Product, Operations, Risk, Compliance, and Technology stakeholders. Expected domain depth includes:

Commercial Banking and Relationship Data

• Experience with commercial customer, prospect, relationship, household/entity, exposure, portfolio, banker assignment, relationship team, pipeline, opportunity, and client profitability data.
• Understanding of commercial banking processes including relationship management, onboarding, credit initiation, covenant tracking, portfolio management, treasury management, deposits, payments, servicing, and cross-sell analytics.

General Banking, Deposits, Lending, and Payments

• Experience with customer, account, product, balances, transactions, fees, interest, branch, contact center, servicing, disputes, card, ACH, wire, check, loan, collateral, and payment data.
• Ability to align architecture across core banking, deposit, loan, payments, CRM, servicing, and operational platforms to support enterprise reporting and analytics.

Digital Banking and Customer Engagement

• Experience with digital banking channels including mobile, online banking, web, digital servicing, authentication, clickstream, journey analytics, campaign response, digital sales, and customer interaction data.
• Understanding of the architecture implications of omni-channel experience, customer 360, personalization, customer servicing, digital adoption, fraud signals, and consent-aware analytics.

Risk, Compliance, Privacy, and Operational Controls

• Working knowledge of data requirements supporting KYC, AML, fraud, customer complaints, fair lending, privacy, consent, access controls, operational risk, and audit requests.
• Ability to partner across Risk, Compliance, Legal, Data Governance, and business teams to align data architecture with regulatory expectations and responsible data use.

Preferred Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in Data Architecture, Data Engineering, Enterprise Data Management, Data Platforms, or related disciplines.
• 7+ years of experience supporting Commercial Banking, Retail/General Banking, Digital Banking, Payments, Lending, Deposits, Customer, Product, Operations, Risk, or Compliance domains within a large financial institution or similarly regulated environment.
• Demonstrated experience defining enterprise-scale data architectures for banking, digital, customer, commercial, operational, analytics, reporting, or governed data platform use cases.
• Deep expertise in data integration, metadata management, data lineage, master/reference data, data quality, data privacy, data controls, and enterprise data governance.
• Strong understanding of banking data ecosystems, customer/account/product relationships, channel interactions, transaction flows, servicing processes, regulatory considerations, and auditability expectations.
• Experience designing and delivering cloud-native or modern data platform architectures, including ingestion, transformation, orchestration, curated data layers, APIs, event-driven data movement, CDC, and consumption patterns.
• Proven ability to influence senior business and technology stakeholders and drive architecture decisions across complex, multi-team delivery environments.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Finance, Data Science, or a related field; equivalent experience may be considered.
• Experience in a large regional, national, or global banking environment.
• Hands-on familiarity with platforms and ecosystems such as Snowflake, AWS, Databricks, Azure, cloud object storage, orchestration tools, data catalogs, lineage tools, data quality platforms, API platforms, CRM platforms, and digital analytics platforms.
• Experience implementing governed data products, certified datasets, customer 360, relationship analytics, commercial portfolio marts, digital engagement datasets, operational reporting layers, or source-to-consumption lineage capabilities.
• Knowledge of banking processes and regulatory considerations related to KYC, AML, fraud, privacy, consent, fair lending, complaints, operational risk, and audit readiness.
• Experience with domain-driven design, data product operating models, enterprise data governance, metadata management, and governed self-service analytics.
• Architecture or data management certifications such as TOGAF, CDMP, DAMA, cloud certifications, or relevant platform certifications.

Additional Information

Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates. More information can be found at https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/benefits.