Senior Solutions Architect - Payment Systems (Director Level)

About

In this role you will be responsible for the end-to-end architecture, solution design, and technical oversight of payment platforms supporting Mizuho Americas’ domestic and cross‑border payment capabilities.

This role acts as a hands-on technical leader and design authority, partnering closely with product, business, risk, operations, infrastructure, and security teams to deliver secure, scalable, and regulatory-compliant payment solutions. You will work closely with the enterprise architects and define target-state solution architectures, guide implementation teams, and ensure alignment with enterprise standards across high-value, real-time, and batch payment systems.

The position requires deep expertise in payment processing architectures, strong understanding of financial messaging standards, and the ability to drive complex initiatives across multiple platforms in a highly regulated environment.

Requirements

Business & Domain Experience

• 12+ years of technology experience, with 5+ years in financial services or payments platforms
• Proven experience architecting mission‑critical, high-volume, regulated systems
• Strong understanding of payments operations, controls, and regulatory considerations

TECHNICAL SKILLS

CORE – MUST HAVE

• Strong experience in enterprise and solution architecture within banking or payments environments
• Hands-on architectural knowledge of:
  • Distributed systems and microservices-based architectures
  • API-led and event-driven integration patterns
  • High-availability, multi-region, and fault-tolerant designs
• Deep understanding of:
  • Payment processing lifecycles
  • Financial messaging standards (e.g., ISO 20022, XML/JSON-based formats)
• Solid background in:
  • Java-based enterprise platforms or equivalent JVM ecosystems
  • Relational databases and transactional data models
  • Messaging platforms and streaming technologies
• Strong grasp of:
  • Security architecture, authentication, authorization, encryption, and data protection
  • Regulatory and risk controls relevant to payment systems
• Ability to analyze, document, and communicate complex system interactions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with real-time or instant payment platforms
• Exposure to vendor payment engines, clearing systems, or market infrastructures
• Cloud and hybrid architecture experience (AWS, Azure, or private cloud)
• Familiarity with container platforms and orchestration (OpenShift, Kubernetes)
• Knowledge of DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code
• Experience supporting modernization from legacy payment systems to next-generation platforms

EDUCATION AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to operate with high autonomy and accountability
• Comfortable working across business, technology, risk, and operations teams
• Strong analytical mindset with a focus on enterprise value, risk stewardship, and long-term sustainability

PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Solution Architecture & Design

• Own the solution architecture for enterprise payment platforms including high-value payments, real-time payments, clearing, settlement, and reporting systems
• Translate business requirements into end-to-end technical architectures, covering application, integration, data, infrastructure, and security layers
• Design solutions aligned with enterprise architecture principles, target-state roadmaps, and regulatory requirements
• Evaluate trade-offs across scalability, resilience, performance, cost, and delivery timelines
• Define integration patterns for internal systems, vendor platforms, and external market infrastructures

Payments Domain & Platform Architecture

• Architect solutions supporting domestic and cross-border payment flows, lifecycle processing, reconciliation, and exception handling
• Apply strong working knowledge of payment rails, clearing models, and settlement mechanisms
• Design architectures aligned with financial messaging standards (e.g., ISO 20022, legacy formats)
• Support modernization initiatives including real-time payments, API-led architectures, and event-driven processing
• Partner with business and operations teams to ensure solutions meet SLA, resiliency, and operational readiness requirements

Technical Leadership & Governance

• Serve as a design authority throughout project lifecycles, from concept through production deployment
• Review and approve solution designs, modeling artifacts, and implementation approaches
• Ensure adherence to architecture standards, security controls, and development best practices
• Guide and mentor development teams, influencing design decisions rather than managing day-to-day coding
• Participate in architecture review boards, technology evaluations, and vendor assessments

Documentation & Standards

• Produce and maintain architecture diagrams, solution blueprints, interface contracts, and design specifications
• Document current-state and target-state architectures, including transition roadmaps
• Contribute to enterprise reference architectures, reusable patterns, and design guidelines
• Ensure architectural artifacts are audit-ready and suitable for regulatory review

Delivery Support & Production Engagement

• Partner with delivery teams during build, testing, and deployment phases to ensure architectural integrity
• Support SIT, UAT, and production readiness reviews, including non-functional testing considerations
• Provide architectural guidance during production incidents, root-cause analysis, and remediation planning
• Collaborate with infrastructure, DevOps, and SRE teams on resilience, observability, and performance tuning