Principal Architect, Enterprise Architecture

Job Description Enterprise Architecture is a key enabler of American Express’ technology strategy. We translate business priorities into technology direction, establish reusable and secure architectural patterns, guide critical technology decisions, and embed architecture into delivery to increase speed, quality, resilience, and reuse. Our Work Spans Across Four Interconnected Areas - Architecture as Code: delivers strong foundational technologies for developers, customer and business partners across the enterprise with reusable platforms and assets. - Architecture as Design: translates business strategy into technology decisions that are consistent, reusable, secure and AI-ready, embedding architecture into delivery to speed execution while reducing complexity, risk and cost. - Governance & Testing: defining architecture standards, governing critical technology decisions, embedding engineering quality through testing, and continuously measuring architecture health to improve quality, reduce risk, and accelerate delivery. - Business Architecture: a single, authoritative view of enterprise business capabilities and customer journeys to guide investment decisions, enable API discovery and reuse, and improve visibility of privacy and regulatory risks. We are seeking a highly technical and forward-thinking Principal Architect to lead AI-enabled architecture strategy focused on areas such as: - Agentic Security and Agentic Platform Enablement, including MCP ecosystem - AI-led Global Servicing and Conversational Technology - Low-Latency and Critical Payment platforms - API and Architectural Best Practices In addition to technical areas, the Principal Architect will also support Business-Unit architecture led initiatives for the Global Servicing and Technology and International Card Services organizations. Operating horizontally across the portfolio of areas that Enterprise Architecture supports, this leader will shape how AI and agentic capabilities are incorporated into platforms, products, and architectural decisions. The Principal Architect will establish reference architectures, reusable patterns, engineering guardrails, and evaluation practices that enable teams to adopt AI securely, responsibly, and at enterprise scale. This role will partner with technology leaders, engineers, architects, product teams, domain experts, and enterprise governance functions to identify and prioritize high-impact opportunities. The Principal Architect will influence technical direction, challenge existing approaches, and help translate emerging AI capabilities into practical solutions that improve automation, customer and colleague experiences, operational efficiency, resilience, and system performance. The successful candidate will combine deep architecture expertise with hands-on knowledge of modern AI systems. This individual must be able to operate at both strategic and technical levels, influence across a highly matrixed organization, and communicate complex technology decisions clearly to senior leaders. The successful candidate must also have builder and management competencies, so as to be able to demonstrate the value of a proposed architecture via Prototypes or scaled production implementations. This emphasis builds upon the current role’s expectations around thought leadership, architectural reviews, enterprise standards, AI and automation, and horizontal influence. Responsibilities - Define and advance the AI and agentic platform architecture strategy, including a focus on Agentic security, MCP ecosystem enablement, and flexibility of expansion to SaaS providers, while also allowing for maturing home-grown AI capabilities. - Support architecture needs across Global Servicing & Corporate Technology, International Consumer Services Technology as well as other Lines of Business, with relevance to Financial Services and Payments industry. - Provide hands-on architectural thought-leadership and expertise for complex or novel AI use cases, from early exploration through production deployment and scale. - Establish reference architectures, reusable patterns, standards, and guardrails for generative AI, agentic systems, intelligent automation, and related emerging technologies. - Ensure AI architectures align with enterprise standards and applicable security, privacy, risk, compliance, regulatory, and model-governance requirements. - Shape the technical direction for AI-enabled platforms and capabilities, aligning near-term delivery with long-term business and enterprise architecture objectives. - Identify and prioritize high-impact AI opportunities that improve automation, customer and colleague experiences, operational efficiency, resilience, and system performance. - Influence enterprise architecture standards and contribute to the continued evolution of the Enterprise Architecture Playbook. - Lead architecture reviews and provide clear, actionable guidance that improves design quality, reduces risk, and accelerates responsible adoption. - Define measurable architecture outcomes and use appropriate metrics, assessments, and OKRs to demonstrate adoption, architectural health, risk reduction, and business impact. - Demonstrate builder capabilities to lead efforts that are prototypes as well as production implementations for mission critical systems. - Have experience with modernization and program management of complex platforms and ecosystems. - Communicate complex AI and architecture concepts in clear, actionable terms for both technical and executive audiences. - Mentor architects and senior engineers, strengthening AI architecture capabilities and engineering practices across the organization. Qualifications - 15+ years of progressive experience in technology architecture, software engineering, or a comparable discipline within a large-scale, complex environment such as: - Demonstrated experience designing and delivering enterprise-grade platforms, products, or technology capabilities. - Deep knowledge of large-scale system architecture, including distributed systems, APIs, cloud-native platforms, data-intensive applications, and hybrid technology environments. - Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer science engineering, or related field required; advanced degree preferred. - Experience defining or implementing enterprise AI architecture, including generative AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, or agentic systems. - Deep understanding of production-grade and scalable AI system considerations, including scalability, latency, reliability, security, observability, evaluation, lifecycle management, and cost optimization. - Experience creating reference architectures, reusable patterns, technical standards, architecture decision records, and engineering guardrails. - Experience in creating OKRs, ROIs, and Architectural assessments. - Experience with development and governance of architecture standards, guidelines and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs). - Experience from leading technology or AI-forward organizations, with the ability to bring external perspectives and translate emerging innovations into enterprise-scale solutions. - Proven ability to influence senior leaders, architects, engineers, product teams, and governance functions across a complex, matrixed organization. - Demonstrated ability to operate as a horizontal technical leader and complex platform and technical product manager, influencing multiple teams and domains without direct ownership, and driving alignment across matrixed organizations. - Demonstrated ability for outcome-oriented leadership, including managing large and complex programs driving time and budget constraints. Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the UK is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions. About Us 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. From delivering differentiated products to providing world-class customer service, we operate with a strong risk mindset, ensuring we continue to uphold our brand promise of trust, security, and service. As part of Team Amex, you’ll experience our 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. About The Team 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.