Principal Industry Architect, FINS
Principal Industry Architect · Principal · Full Time
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Role
What you'll do.
Principal Industry Architect for Financial Services at Snowflake, responsible for architecting data-driven and AI-powered solutions that transform core banking operations. This role combines deep financial services domain expertise with cloud architecture acumen to drive customer adoption of Snowflake's Data Cloud platform across retail banking, commercial lending, payments, and risk management. You will partner with C-suite executives and technical leaders to design scalable enterprise architectures, influence product roadmap priorities, and establish thought leadership in the rapidly evolving fintech and data cloud landscape.
Responsibilities
- Strategic Customer Partnership & Executive Engagement: Drive customer engagement on strategic deals where industry expertise accelerates Snowflake Data Cloud adoption. Build trusted advisor relationships with C-level executives, Chief Data Officers, Chief Risk Officers, and enterprise data architects at major financial institutions. Blend business and technical context to advance multi-million dollar opportunities involving core banking modernization, data unification, and AI-powered risk management initiatives.
- Solution Architecture & Design Innovation: Translate complex banking use cases, regulatory challenges, and business opportunities into end-to-end data-driven and AI-powered solutions. Design future-state technical blueprints and architecture patterns that embed machine learning and agentic workflows for critical fintech applications including fraud detection systems, credit risk modeling platforms, regulatory reporting automation, and comprehensive customer 360 data ecosystems.
- Enterprise Architecture Scaling & Repeatability: Lead strategic initiatives to build repeatable, production-grade enterprise architectures and solution assets for the global banking industry. Develop persona-driven use case journeys, system and application architecture reference designs, and technical demonstration environments that integrate Snowflake into customers' broader financial services technology ecosystems. Create comprehensive playbooks, workshops, and enablement materials to ensure consistent implementation across global deployments.
- Product Roadmap Influence & Industry Feedback: Act as a critical conduit between enterprise banking customers and Snowflake product teams. Synthesize structured feedback from financial services requirements, regulatory frameworks, and competitive landscape analysis to directly shape the evolution of Snowflake's data cloud platform, particularly in fintech-specific capabilities for core banking, risk, and compliance workloads.
- Thought Leadership & Industry Visibility: Establish and amplify technical thought leadership for financial services at scale. Author industry analysis blogs and technical white papers, deliver keynote presentations at major banking conferences including Money20/20, Sibos, InsureTech Connect, and LIMRA. Contribute to industry marketing campaigns, webinar series, and analyst relations that position Snowflake as a data cloud leader in financial services transformation.
- Technical Industry Trend Analysis & Innovation Scouting: Evaluate emerging technical trends—data mesh architecture, data vault methodology, generative AI applications, and data lakehouse platforms—through a financial services lens. Develop perspectives and case studies on real-time fraud detection, open banking data sharing frameworks, and regulatory data lineage requirements. Stay ahead of industry evolution in composable banking, embedded finance, and regulatory technology innovation.
- Field Enablement & Internal Knowledge Scaling: Scale domain expertise across Snowflake's sales engineering and customer success teams through targeted enablement initiatives. Organize cross-functional Snowdays events that bring together solutions engineers, product specialists, and customer teams. Develop standardized technical content, reference architectures, and training materials that ensure consistent value delivery across all financial services customer engagements.
- Ecosystem Partner Collaboration & Integration: Engage strategically with financial services technology ecosystem partners including core banking platforms (Temenos, FIS, Fiserv, Finacle), risk and compliance solution providers, and data vendors. Facilitate integration discussions, conduct domain-specific architecture reviews, and advocate for ecosystem participants to establish Data Cloud presence, creating multiplier effects for customer value realization.
- RFP Support & Regulatory Compliance Navigation: Provide specialized technical perspective on RFPs with financial services industry requirements. Address complex regulatory, risk, and operational questions related to frameworks including Basel III/IV, DORA, IFRS 9/17, Solvency II, BCBS 239, and AML/KYC compliance. Demonstrate how Snowflake's platform meets stringent data governance, security, and audit trail requirements.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
SQL & Data Query Languages
Expert proficiency in SQL required, including advanced topics such as window functions, complex joins, query optimization, and execution plan analysis. Demonstrated ability to write production-grade SQL for ETL processes, data transformations, and analytical queries against enterprise data warehouses.
Python Programming
Strong hands-on experience with Python for data engineering, analytics scripting, and data transformation tasks. Proficiency with libraries including Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, and frameworks for building data pipelines. Ability to develop and code-review Python applications that integrate with data platforms.
Core Banking Platform Ecosystems
Demonstrated familiarity with major core banking platforms including Temenos, FIS, Fiserv, and Finacle. Understanding of how these systems store transactional data, reporting capabilities, integration patterns, and modernization strategies. Experience mapping banking business processes to core system functionality.
Financial Services Risk & Compliance Systems
Working knowledge of risk management systems, compliance platforms, and regulatory reporting tools. Understanding of how risk data flows, AML/KYC compliance systems, transaction monitoring platforms, and audit trail requirements. Familiarity with actuarial tools such as ResQ and Remetrica.
Machine Learning & Data Science Applications
Understanding of machine learning concepts and practical applications in financial services contexts. Knowledge of credit scoring models, fraud detection algorithms, AML transaction monitoring systems, and predictive risk modeling. Ability to discuss ML pipeline architecture, model validation, and deployment considerations with data science teams.
Cloud Data Warehouse Platforms
Expert familiarity with cloud-native data warehouse and analytics platforms including Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and Azure Synapse. Deep understanding of data warehouse architecture patterns, scalability models, performance optimization, cost control, and query acceleration technologies.
ETL/ELT & Data Integration Architecture
Advanced experience designing and implementing ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) and ELT (Extract-Load-Transform) data pipelines. Proficiency with integration tools, data quality frameworks, and orchestration platforms. Understanding of real-time data streaming, CDC (Change Data Capture), and complex data lineage tracking.
Financial Regulatory & Compliance Frameworks
Working knowledge of banking and financial services regulatory standards including Basel III/IV, DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act), IFRS 9/17, Solvency II, BCBS 239, AML/KYC regulations, NAIC requirements, and state Department of Insurance reporting. Understanding of how these frameworks drive data architecture and governance requirements.
Education
Bachelor's Degree (Required)
Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution required. Field of study should be technical or quantitative in nature.
Advanced Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Finance, or Related Fields (Preferred)
Master's degree preferred in computer science, software engineering, mathematics, finance, actuarial science, financial engineering, or related quantitative/technical field. Demonstrates advanced technical foundation and commitment to professional development in specialized domains.
Experience
10+ Years Financial Services Architecture & Implementation
Demonstrated track record of 10+ years architecting, consulting on, or implementing transformational technology solutions directly within core banking and financial services organizations. Deep hands-on experience designing systems that address retail banking, commercial lending, payments infrastructure, treasury operations, risk management, and compliance domains.
Expert-Level Financial Services Domain Knowledge
Comprehensive understanding of banking business models, core system landscapes, and operational challenges. Expert ability to map data requirements and technical processes across major banking functional areas including Retail & Commercial Lending, Payments, Treasury Operations, Risk & Compliance, and Finance. Understanding of how regulatory requirements drive architecture decisions.
Consultative Customer Engagement & Discovery
Proven ability to engage at executive and technical levels to surface customer pain points, regulatory constraints, and business priorities. Track record of translating business challenges into right-fit, scalable technical solution architectures that leverage modern data and AI technologies. Comfortable conducting architecture workshops, whiteboarding sessions, and technical strategy discussions.
Large-Scale Data Platform Architecture Experience
Hands-on experience designing and implementing large-scale database systems, enterprise data warehouse platforms, and ETL/ELT data pipeline architectures. Proven expertise with analytics platforms, cloud data infrastructure, and managing distributed systems at scale. Experience optimizing performance, concurrency, and cost in multi-tenant cloud environments.
3+ Years Cloud Provider Architecture Development
Minimum 3 years of direct customer-facing architecture development experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Demonstrated ability to design cloud-native solutions, optimize cloud economics, and guide enterprise customers through cloud migration strategies. Experience with infrastructure-as-code, cloud security architectures, and compliance frameworks in cloud environments.
Senior Executive & Stakeholder Credibility
Established track record of working directly with C-level executives, board members, and senior technology leaders. Ability to quickly establish credibility with enterprise leadership teams. Experience presenting complex technical concepts to diverse audiences including CFOs, CROs, Chief Information Officers, and Board-level risk committees.
Skills
Required
SQL Expertise
Expert-level SQL proficiency including query optimization, execution plans, window functions, and complex multi-table joins required for data warehouse analysis and transformation
Python Programming
Hands-on Python experience for data engineering, analytics scripting, and data pipeline development with proven ability to write production-grade code
Enterprise Architecture Design
Ability to design large-scale, scalable technical architectures that align business requirements with technical feasibility and cloud-native best practices
Financial Services Domain Expertise
Deep knowledge of banking operations, core systems, regulatory requirements, and financial services business models across retail banking, lending, payments, risk, and compliance
Cloud Architecture Development
Customer-facing architecture experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP including design of cloud-native solutions, cost optimization, security architecture, and compliance implementations
Executive Presentation & Communication
Outstanding ability to present complex technical concepts clearly to both C-level executives and technical audiences, with strong storytelling and whiteboarding skills
Consultative Problem-Solving
Skilled at conducting discovery conversations, asking probing questions to understand customer pain points, and developing tailored technical solutions aligned to business priorities
Data Warehouse & Analytics Architecture
Expert understanding of data warehouse design patterns, ETL/ELT architectures, analytics platforms, and optimization techniques for performance and cost
Preferred
Java or Scala Programming
Nice to haveExperience with Java, Scala, or other compiled programming languages for building robust data engineering applications and frameworks
Advanced ML/AI Implementation
Nice to haveHands-on experience implementing machine learning models for financial services use cases including fraud detection, credit risk modeling, AML monitoring, and predictive analytics
Open Banking & API Architecture
Nice to haveExperience designing open banking solutions, REST API architectures, and integration patterns for financial data sharing and third-party integrations
Data Mesh & Modern Data Architecture Patterns
Nice to haveKnowledge of data mesh architectures, data vault methodology, data product thinking, and distributed data governance approaches for enterprise organizations
Fintech Startup or Scale-up Experience
Nice to haveBackground in fintech, embedded finance, or digital banking organizations where you've helped modernize or scale financial services technology
Industry Event Visibility
Nice to havePrior speaking experience at major financial services conferences including Money20/20, Sibos, InsureTech Connect, or other fintech industry events
Data Governance & Compliance Management
Nice to haveExperience implementing data governance frameworks, GDPR/data privacy compliance, audit trail requirements, and regulatory reporting automation
Solutions Engineering or Pre-sales Experience
Nice to haveBackground in solutions engineering, sales engineering, or technical consulting roles that required managing complex customer relationships and closing enterprise deals
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 187,200 – 245,700
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Comprehensive Health Coverage
Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans with company subsidies. Coverage extends to employees and their families with multiple plan options to choose from based on individual needs and preferences.
Retirement & Financial Planning
401(k) retirement savings plan with company matching contributions. Access to financial advisory services and retirement planning resources to support long-term wealth building.
Flexible Time Off & Paid Leave
Unlimited paid time off policy allowing employees to take time for vacation, personal development, and wellness. Company-observed holidays and paid parental leave for new parents.
Equity Compensation
Competitive stock option grants that align employee interests with company success. Vesting schedules that reward long-term commitment and allow participation in Snowflake's growth trajectory as a public company.
Professional Development & Learning
Tuition reimbursement for continuing education and professional certifications relevant to your career. Access to industry conferences, training programs, and technical skill development resources. Internal mentorship and career growth opportunities.
Wellness & Mental Health Support
Comprehensive mental health services including counseling and therapy support. Wellness programs covering fitness, nutrition, and preventive health initiatives. Stress management resources and employee assistance programs.
Commuter Benefits & Flexibility
Pre-tax commuter benefits for public transportation and parking. Flexible work arrangements supporting remote work, hybrid schedules, and office flexibility depending on role and team needs.
Life & Disability Insurance
Company-paid life insurance and long-term disability coverage protecting employees and their families. Additional voluntary life insurance options available for enhanced coverage.
Full posting
Original listing.
At Snowflake, we are powering the era of the agentic enterprise. To usher in this new era, we seek AI-native thinkers across every function who are energized by the opportunity to reinvent how they work. You don’t just use tools; you possess an innate curiosity, treating AI as a high-trust collaborator that is core to how you solve problems and accelerate your impact. We look for low-ego individuals who thrive in dynamic and fast-moving environments and move with an experimental mindset — who rapidly test emerging capabilities to discover simpler, more powerful ways to deliver results. At Snowflake, your role isn't just to execute a function, but to help redefine the future of how work gets done.
We are a visionary and innovative industry expert team with a track record of architecting, building, and taking solutions to market applicable to various sub-verticals across financial services, spanning retail and commercial banking, lending and payments.
There is only one Data Cloud. Snowflake's founders started from scratch and designed a data platform built for the cloud that is effective, affordable, and accessible to all data users. But it didn't stop there. They engineered Snowflake to power the Data Cloud, where thousands of organizations unlock the value of their data with near-unlimited scale, concurrency, and performance. This is our vision: a world with endless insights to tackle the challenges and opportunities of today and reveal the possibilities of tomorrow.
Are you passionate about taking new ideas and innovation to market? Have you successfully applied technology to solve business problems in core banking? If so, we have a strategic opportunity to use your expertise across Data, Cloud, and AI to drive transformational changes across the financial services industry in a highly visible role collaborating with internal and external leadership.
Snowflake is seeking a seasoned Financial Services Industry Architect with deep, hands-on experience designing and delivering transformation initiatives powered by data, analytics, and AI. The ideal candidate has worked directly with banks, financial services organizations to modernize core systems, unify transactional and risk data, and translate business priorities into scalable technical architectures and measurable business outcomes.
You will act as a visionary and innovative industry expert with the opportunity to apply your successful track record of architecting, building, and taking solutions to market applicable to various sub-verticals across the financial services ecosystem and critical workloads in our customer footprint.
IN THIS ROLE YOU WILL GET TO:
Partner with customers on strategic opportunities: You will drive customer engagement in strategic deals where your industry expertise can help drive Snowflake adoption. You'll build trusted relationships with executives, chief data officers, chief risk officers, and enterprise data architects at banks and finance organizations, acting as a trusted advisor who blends business and technical context to advance opportunities.
Innovate and design solutions: Working with the Industry GTM team, you'll translate core banking use cases, challenges, and opportunities into data-driven and AI-powered solutions and architecture. This includes creating end-to-end architectures and future-state blueprints, and demo showcases that embed AI/ML and agentic flows into solutions such as fraud detection, credit risk modeling, regulatory reporting, and customer 360.
Drive repeatability and scale: You'll lead strategic initiatives by building repeatable enterprise architectures and solution assets for the banking industry that can be leveraged for global adoption. Your deliverables will include persona use case journeys and system/application architecture, demo showcases that integrate Snowflake into a customer's broader financial services solutions portfolio and ecosystem. You'll also scale your expertise through field enablement and by creating workshops and playbooks.
Influence the product roadmap: Act as a conduit to the product teams, providing structured feedback based on banking industry needs and customer requirements to help shape Snowflake's product roadmap.
Be a thought leader: Drive technical thought leadership for the financial services industry through blogs, talks, and field enablement. You will also be a key contributor to industry marketing activities including webinars and conferences such as Money20/20, Sibos, InsureTech Connect, and LIMRA.
ON DAY ONE WE WILL EXPECT YOU TO HAVE:
10+ years of architecture experience building, consulting to, and/or implementing technology for core banking and/or financial services organizations
Expert in financial services data topics and well-versed in the overall challenges and opportunities impacting the industry; ability to map data requirements and processes for the major functional areas of core banking (Retail & Commercial Lending, Payments, Treasury, Risk & Compliance, Finance)
Ability to consultatively engage with customers to understand pain points, challenges, and come up with right-fit solution architecture using the latest data and AI technologies
Broad range of experience with technical and design direction including large-scale database and/or data warehouse technology, ETL, analytics, and public cloud technologies
Understanding of Data Science & Machine Learning concepts and applications in financial services — including credit scoring, fraud detection, and AML/transaction monitoring
Familiarity with key sources of enterprise financial services data and technologies including core banking platforms (e.g., Temenos, FIS, Fiserv, Finacle), risk and compliance systems, actuarial tools (e.g., ResQ, Remetrica), payment networks, CRMs, and third-party data providers
Understanding of financial services regulatory and compliance frameworks (Basel III/IV, DORA, IFRS 9/17, Solvency II, BCBS 239, AML/KYC, NAIC, state DOI reporting) and the data demands they create
Outstanding presentation skills to both technical and executive audiences, whether impromptu on a whiteboard or using presentations and demos
Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly to architects, engineering leaders, risk officers, operations leaders, business executives, and regulatory stakeholders
Experience working with senior executives and an ability to quickly establish credibility with senior leadership
Bachelor's Degree required; Master's Degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, finance, actuarial science, or related fields, or equivalent experience preferred
The ability to travel to customer sites, industry events, and other related events as required
Strong knowledge of SQL, Python with hands-on experience is required; experience in Java, Scala, or other languages is a plus
3+ years of Cloud Provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP) customer-facing architecture development experience
WHAT ARE THE TYPICAL GOALS FOR THE ROLE?
Proactive customer guidance:
Technical Industry Overview and Architecture:How is the banking industry adopting Snowflake, and which industry value drivers does Snowflake attach to?
Technical Use Case Overviews:Extend use case presentations with how financial services use cases might be addressed — including technical architectures and key decision points for risk, compliance, banking, and lending workloads.
Ecosystem partner engagement:Does the customer need interface or vendor guidance with financial services ecosystem partners (e.g., FIS, Fiserv, Temenos, Verisk, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, MSCI)? Is there an ecosystem participant without a Data Cloud presence we should introduce to the wider Snowflake team? We can facilitate these conversations and advocate for the customer and the vendor.
Solution architecture and review:Snowflake has a diverse ecosystem of financial services industry participants with domain-specific solutions to a wide range of use cases; domain-specific architecture reviews play a key role.
Strategic stakeholder alignment:C-level and direct reports may require strategic, longer-running relationships that maintain consistency and alignment across business units and use cases — particularly in large global banks. The Industry Architect role can help maintain global consistency of vision and assist individual geographies.
Strong alignment with the Financial Services Industry Team
Technical industry trend PoV:Data Mesh, Data Vault, GenAI, Data Lakes vs. Warehouses vs. Lakehouses — view these technical trends through a financial services lens, including case studies on real-time fraud detection, open banking data sharing, and regulatory data lineage.
Snowdays: Bring in the wider team to complement the customer's point of view with a broader industry perspective, including bespoke solution/lab setups for banking
RFP support: Some RFPs have a financial services industry backdrop and may request information on the Financial Services Data Cloud, or otherwise require a perspective on specific regulatory, risk, or operational topics.
Internal Engagement
We are always looking for ways to scale our offering. We welcome opportunities to gather a group of SEs to drive and foster better industry alignment and knowledge sharing. Creating scalable content and driving adoption of key use cases is the primary goal for the role, so finding ways to spread the message both internally and externally is critical.
Partner Engagement
Our team is always looking for new and innovative ways to solve key use cases. This includes engaging with key financial services ecosystem partners to develop industry best practices, architectures, and demos.
Industry Events
Our team of specialists is most likely already involved with key industry events such as Money20/20, Sibos, InsureTech Connect, and LIMRA. If there is something that makes sense to bring us into, please let us know how we can help.
Every Snowflake employee is expected to follow the company's confidentiality and security standards for handling sensitive data. Snowflake employees must abide by the company's data security plan as an essential part of their duties. It is every employee's duty to keep customer information secure and confidential.
Snowflake is growing fast, and we’re scaling our team to help enable and accelerate our growth. We are looking for people who share our values, challenge ordinary thinking, and push the pace of innovation while building a future for themselves and Snowflake.
How do you want to make your impact?
For jobs located in the United States, please visit the job posting on the Snowflake Careers Site for salary and benefits information: careers.snowflake.com
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