Solutions Architect

We are seeking a highly skilled Solutions Architect to join our team at PenFed Credit Union. As a key member of our IT Mortgage team, you will be responsible for collaborating with stakeholders to understand business needs and develop architecture and design artifacts to meet those needs.

This is a hybrid role, with the ability to work from our Tysons, Virginia or San Antonio, Texas location. You will be working closely with our IT team to design, implement, and evaluate current and future initiatives for the highest level of efficiency and performance.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in banking and financial industry business systems and business applications, with a minimum of 7 years of experience. You will also have knowledge of project management and SDLC methodology, as well as powerful analytical and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities will include:

• Drive solution design and provide technical leadership through the creation of reference architectures, standards, and project-level design artifacts.
• Work as the highest-level technical engineering expert for IT and act as an internal consultant and architect for the IT Mortgage.
• Design, implement, and evaluate current and future initiatives for the highest level of efficiency and performance.
• Assist management and engineering staff in the evaluation, analysis, architecture, design, and implementation of enterprise programs and projects.
• Lead the Enterprise Architecture designs, guidance, and requirements for incorporation into departmental processes and technical documents.
• Research, analyze, evaluate, and provide recommendations to management on future technology direction.
• Perform peer review on complex change implementations to ensure completeness and minimal impact to members.
• Deploy and document changes in accordance with enterprise problems and change management processes.
• Lead problem management and root cause analysis discussions with fellow engineers and analysts.
• Proactively identify solutions to potential issues and embrace simplification.
• Serve as escalation point for high-severity issues and troubleshoot/resolve complex incidents.
• Provide assistance and expertise to management on improvements to company productivity, systems performance, high availability, monitoring, and operational costs.
• Provide training, mentoring, consulting, and knowledge transfer to other engineering staff.
• Drive and be accountable for all assigned tasks and remain continuously self-challenged in setting and delivering on agreed deadlines and milestones.
• Serve as technical team lead on programs or projects assigned by management.
• Require the ability to thoroughly understand the entire enterprise environment and use that knowledge to consult and design end-to-end solutions that meet business and IT goals and strategies.
• Own and author a technical roadmap that aligns with our business delivery, incrementally eliminates technical debt and complexities, and advances us towards aligning to PenFed reference architecture.
• Responsible for promoting a culture of developer quality as it applies to software design, documentation, automated testing, and adherence to best practices.
• Strengthen the software delivery process based on the Agile principles, including Scrum, Automated Testing, Continuous Integration, and Deployment.
• Delivery-focused with the ability to track, mitigate, and escalate issues that arise throughout the Software Development Lifecycle.
• Solid people management skills and the ability to participate as a leader within development teams. Experience mentoring and grooming future talent.
• Ability to manage relationships with business stakeholders. Organize and prioritize complex delivery programs.
• Collaborate with other technical and operational groups (Development, Enterprise Architecture, Technology Operations, and Infrastructure, etc.).
• Require the ability to thoroughly understand the entire enterprise environment and use that knowledge to consult and design end-to-end solutions that meet business and IT goals and strategies.
• Maintain close relations with vendors. Assist management in maintaining service agreements, maintenance contracts, or other assigned vendor-related administrative duties.

An equivalent combination of education and experience is considered.

• Bachelor's Degree preferred, Advanced technology-focused degree a plus.
• Minimum of seven (7) years of experience working in banking or financial industry business systems and business applications.
• Knowledge of project management and SDLC methodology.
• Poweful analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to develop solutions in new and creative ways.
• Ability to independently clarify and assess ambiguous issues to develop consensus toward a solution.
• Experience in developing architectural designs, topologies, and implementation engineering guidance documents.
• Experience training or mentoring both technical and non-technical diverse audiences.
• Demonstrated analytical techniques and ability to make recommendations to technical and program leadership to improve the product, process, or technology and present ideas clearly and concisely.
• In-depth hands-on experience establishing best practices and guidelines for innovating, selecting, developing, and implementing information systems within enterprise.
• Experience with Big data and Snowflake preferred.
• Experience with agile and CI/CD tools (AutoRabbit) required.
• Experience with Ellie Mae Encompass and Black Knight MSP preferred.
• Experience with Salesforce, MuleSoft, and/or AWS required.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, such as meeting facilitation, presentation documentation, and interpersonal communications skills.

Established in 1935, PenFed today is one of the country's strongest and most stable financial institutions with over 2.8 million members and over $36 billion in assets.

We serve members in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as in Guam, Puerto Rico, and Okinawa.

We are federally insured by NCUA and we are an Equal Housing Lender. We are available to members worldwide, via the web, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.

We provide our employees with a lucrative benefits package including robust medical, dental, and vision plan options, plenty of paid time off, 401k with employer match, on-site fitness facilities at our larger locations, and more.

Equal Employment OpportunityPenFed management will maintain and observe personnel policies which will not discriminate or permit harassment or retaliation against a person because of race, color, creed, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital status, military or veteran status or obligation, the presence of a physical and/or mental disability or medical condition, genetic information, sexual orientation, and all statuses protected by applicable state or local law in all recruiting, hiring, training, compensation, overtime, position classifications, work assignments, facilities, promotions, transfers, employee treatment, and in all other terms and conditions of employment.

PenFed will also prohibit retaliation against individuals for raising a complaint of discrimination or harassment or participating in an investigation of same.

PenFed will also reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability so that they can apply for a job or perform the essential functions of a job unless doing so causes a direct threat to these individuals or others in the workplace and the threat cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation or if the accommodation creates an undue hardship to PenFed.

Contact human resources (HR) with any questions or requests for accommodation