Job Title: Application Architect
Job Summary: Citizens Bank is seeking an Application Architect to design scalable, secure application and integration architectures across our enterprise technology landscape, with strong emphasis on our Snowflake, Kafka, and AWS data ecosystem, and the ability to architect AI-enabled solutions including RAG pipelines and agentic workflows.
Key Responsibilities
Own end-to-end application architecture — design, integration patterns, deployment topology, scalability, resiliency, and security.
Define architecture blueprints, reference patterns, and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) for enterprise applications.
Design integration architecture across core banking systems, data platforms, and downstream applications (APIs, event streams, batch).
Architect data movement using Snowflake native components (Snowpark, Snowpipe, Streams & Tasks, Dynamic Tables) and dbt for transformations.
Design Kafka-based real-time and event-driven integration patterns.
Architect application and integration solutions on AWS (S3, Lambda, Glue, MSK, IAM, API Gateway).
Architect RAG-based pipelines (retrieval strategy, vector store integration, LLM API integration) and design patterns for agentic workflows (tool-calling, orchestration, human-in-the-loop).
Lead architecture reviews, enforce standards, and mentor engineering teams on design best practices.
Maintain architecture documentation (system diagrams, data flows, sequence diagrams) and present designs to technical and business stakeholders.
Ensure solutions align with banking regulatory and security requirements.
Required Skills & Experience
10+ years in application/solution architecture, preferably in financial services.
Strong experience with Snowflake (Snowpark, Snowpipe, Streams/Tasks) and dbt.
Hands-on experience with Kafka integration architecture.
Strong working knowledge of AWS (S3, Lambda, Glue, MSK, IAM).
Experience architecting end-to-end data movement (batch and streaming).
Practical knowledge of RAG architecture (vector stores, embeddings, LLM integration) and agentic workflow design.
Strong grasp of enterprise integration patterns, microservices, and API design.
Ability to produce architecture artifacts (ADRs, diagrams) and communicate effectively with technical and executive stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
Banking/financial services experience, familiarity with SOX, PCI-DSS, GLBA.
TOGAF, Snowflake (SnowPro Architect), or AWS Solutions Architect certification.
Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/CloudFormation).
Education
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent experience.