Senior Solutions Architect - Payment Systems

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., * 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

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, * 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, * 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

The expected base salary ranges from $160k-$225k. Salary offers are based on a wide range of factors including relevant skills, training, experience, education, and, where applicable, certifications and licenses obtained. Market and organizational factors are also considered. In addition to salary and a generous employee benefits package, successful candidates are eligible to receive a discretionary bonus.

Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. is the 15th largest bank in the world as measured by total assets of ~$2 trillion. Mizuho's 60,000 employees worldwide offer comprehensive financial services to clients in 35 countries and 800 offices throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia. Mizuho Americas is a leading provider of corporate and investment banking services to clients in the US, Canada, and Latin America. Through its acquisition of Greenhill , Mizuho provides M&A, restructuring and private capital advisory capabilities across Americas, Europe and Asia. Mizuho Americas employs approximately 3,500 professionals, and its capabilities span corporate and investment banking, capital markets, equity and fixed income sales & trading, derivatives, FX, custody and research. Visit www.mizuhoamericas.com.