Chief Architect - Infrastructure

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

The Opportunity

As a dedicated Technical Fellow, you will be responsible for translating business needs into technical solutions and defining solutions to business problems through reasoned application of information technology.  Designs, develops, and analyzes overall architecture of internal systems, including hardware and software.  Determines integrated hardware and software architecture solutions that meet performance, scalability, reliability, and security needs.  Coordinates design and integration of total system including subsystems.  Researches and recommends technology to improve the current systems.  Provides organizational leadership and technical vision, coupled with strong business acumen to deliver an efficient, sound, and industry leading technical platform.

We offer a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Phoenix, AZ, or Charlotte, NC.

What you’ll do:

• Leads development, implementation, and integration of technical strategies to assure achievement of multiple CoSAs goals.

• Serves as primary consultant to IT, executive management and other personnel in large-scale information technology efforts, which require extremely high degrees of analytical and creative ability.

• Influences senior management regarding development, hardware and software configurations by influencing and empowering Technical Architects or peer Technical Fellows.

• Creates multi-year plans to operationalize a technology strategy, with key milestones, deliverables, and realization targets.

• Evaluates design and architecture of proposed systems by their Architecture teams to determine feasibility of new applications and/or assess business impacts on other systems.

• Provides knowledge counsel to executive management on cross-divisional, cross-applications, and cross-technology issues.

• Directs the assessment of integration and supports impacts of new, proposed, and existing technologies, and advises executive management.

• Directs the scope, design, coordination, and implementation decisions concerning integration of the organization’s broad spectrum of highly technical and complex computer and telecommunication systems.

• Builds and oversees a team of Technical Architects supporting a technical portfolio of a CoSA through ongoing execution of recruiting, development, retention, coaching and support, performance management, and managerial activities.

• Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

What you have:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration, Information Systems/Management or related field OR 4 years of related experience (in addition to the minimum years of experience required) may be substituted in lieu of degree.

• 10 or more years of progressive related experience developing cross domain technical strategies, managing complex technology transformation initiatives and delivering results within a large-scale technology environment.

• 6 or more years leadership experience directly leading IT Professionals in a Technical Architecture or Engineering environment.

• Experience collaborating with key resources and stakeholders, influencing decisions and managing work to achieve strategic goals.

• Executive level business acumen in the areas of business operations, industry practices and emerging trends required.

• Ability to consider process, business impact, timing, budget, organization, strategy, and change management for any technology decision – and to be able to explain that to any audience, at any level, of any size.

• Excellent leadership, creativity, communication, presentation, writing, and collaboration skills.

• Ability to effectively contribute IT Architecture when assigned to provide technical leadership for high level, multi-effort business change and the highest complexity projects and initiatives that are directly linked to published enterprise goals and strategies.

• Comprehensive knowledge of both current and emerging technologies that affect business.

• Extensive knowledge of IT related risk management framework and policies.

• Certification based on the domain support such as: AWS – Certified Solution Architect, CTA – Salesforce, ITIL – Master Certification, TOGAF 9, or Zachman Certified Enterprise Architect.

What sets you apart:

• Strong understanding of IT automation, infrastructure as code, infrastructure pipeline techniques to radically simplify deployment and management of IT infrastructure.

• Utilized tools like Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation to automate infrastructure provisioning and management.

• Implemented continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines to automate the deployment process.

• Created self-service portals for developers to deploy applications with minimal manual intervention.

• Experience working on resiliency solutions across multiple hybrid cloud environments for the purpose of ensuring proper architecture and operational effectiveness. Ensure seamless integration between on-premises and cloud environments. Implement strategies for data synchronization and consistency across hybrid environments. Use tools that provide a unified view and management capabilities for both on-premises and cloud resources.

• Strong vision and strategic thinking about future of IT infrastructure, security, networking, cloud and data center operations, based on platform thinking and AI models.

• Implemented strategies to ensure systems are available 24/7, including redundancy and failover mechanisms.

• Implemented security best practices specific to Azure and GCP, including identity and access management, encryption, and network security.

• Automate compliance checks to ensure infrastructure meets regulatory requirements.

The salary range for this position is: $224,250 - $403,650.

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Long Term Incentive Plan: Cash payment for Executive level roles only, representing a cash payment which is both time and performance based.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.