Principal Architect

Overview

Who we are

Toyota does not offer support or sponsorship of job applicants for employment-based visas or any other workauthorization for this role now or in the future. You must have the right to work in the United States and not requireToyota support or sponsorship for immigration-related employment (e.g. H-1B O-1 E-3 H-1B1 TN F-1 OPT F-1 STEM OPT F-1 CPT job flexibility benefits also known as I-140 or Adjustment of Status portability etc.) now or in thefuture. You should not apply for this role if you will require Toyota to assist with immigration support or sponsorshipnow or in the future.

Who were looking for

At TFS were building a greenfield cloud-native engineering platform that will redefine how Toyota Financial Services delivers digital products to millions of customers. Were looking for a Principal Architect a senior individual contributor at the top of our IC track who owns the technical coherence of the entire platform. This is not a management role and its not an advisory role. Its for the engineer who can see across every layer of the system application data AI/ML and infrastructure make binding architectural decisions and then get in the code to validate them. Youll be the connective tissue between engineering teams setting direction across the stack shaping standards that last and serving as the person engineering leadership trusts to say this is how we build it.

What youll be doing

Platform Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Own the end-to-end reference architecture for our engineering platform team application data AI/ML and infrastructure layers ensuring coherence across all product domains
• Make binding well-documented architectural decisions across teams; author RFCs ADRs and design documents that become the foundation for how we build
• Lead platform-wide technical design reviews and architecture forums driving alignment across engineering leads engineering managers and product
• Define evolve and enforce engineering standards: API design contracts IaC patterns security posture observability baselines and deployment safety
• Identify and resolve systemic risks before they become incidents performance ceilings reliability gaps coupling issues and architectural drift
• Evaluate and recommend new technologies frameworks and AWS services; balance innovation with operational maturity and team capability

Hands-On Implementation & Code Quality

• Contribute with spikes/production-quality code in TypeScript and/or Python you validate architectural decisions by writing and reviewing the code not just describing it
• Own the design and lead implementation of the most complex cross-cutting platform components: shared infrastructure modules API frameworks data pipeline foundations and AI/ML integration layers
• Lead technical troubleshooting for the hardest distributed system failures from API latency and data pipeline failures to infrastructure misconfigurations and LLM reliability issues
• Review and approve architectural changes across codebases holding a consistently high bar for quality testability observability and security

Data Platform & AI/ML Architecture

• Architect the data backbone of the platform: S3-based lakehouse design event-driven streaming pipelines data orchestration and analytical query patterns
• Define integration patterns for AI/ML capabilities how Bedrock agents SageMaker endpoints RAG pipelines and agentic workflows connect to the application and data layers as first-class architectural concerns not bolt-ons
• Establish guardrails for LLM-based systems: structured outputs prompt engineering standards observability for model behavior and patterns for deterministic production-grade AI features
• Partner with the ML/AI engineering team to ensure AI components are observable testable and maintainable at production scale

Cross-Functional Influence & Engineering Culture

• Serve as a technical thought partner to Engineering Managers and the VP of Engineering translating complex technical tradeoffs into clear actionable recommendations for both engineering and non-technical stakeholders
• Partner with Product and Program Management to assess technical feasibility shape roadmaps and surface risks early
• Drive the RFC and design review process across the engineering organization ensuring major decisions have appropriate rigor and broad visibility
• Mentor senior and lead engineers through design reviews pairing and written feedback raising the technical ceiling of the entire org
• Contribute to hiring by conducting technical interviews for senior IC and architect-level roles and helping define what architectural excellence looks like at TFS
• Champion a culture of documentation: ADRs runbooks design documents and onboarding guides that transfer knowledge and reduce key-person risk

What you bring

• Bachelors degree in computer science or related field or equivalent practical experience
• 10 years of software engineering experience with at least 5 years of operating as a hands-on architect or principal-level IC on AWS-based platforms
• Proven track record ofowning full-platform architecture decisionsin production not just advising but being accountable for the outcomes

AWS & Cloud Architecture

• Deep hands-on expertise withserverless-first AWS architecture including:
• LambdaAPI Gateway(REST and HTTP)Step FunctionsEventBridgeSQS/SNSfor compute and async orchestration
• DynamoDBand/orAurora Serverlessfor data persistence patterns
• S3CloudFront and edge patterns for object storage CDN strategy and API acceleration
• Experience designingmulti-account AWS architectureswith proper governance: AWS Organizations Control Tower Service Control Policies and cross-account IAM patterns
• Strong command ofIaC design and governanceusing AWS CDK CloudFormation or Terraform owning infrastructure design end-to-end not just reviewing it

Data Platform

• Experience architectingS3-based lakehouse patterns: table formats (Apache Iceberg or Delta Lake) partitioning strategies and lifecycle management
• Hands-on design ofevent-driven streaming pipelinesusing Kinesis MSK/Kafka or similar through to analytics with Athena Redshift or equivalent
• Familiarity withdata governancepatterns: Lake Formation data cataloging access control for sensitive financial data

AI/ML Integration

• Practical experience integratingAmazon Bedrock SageMaker endpoints or equivalent LLM/ML services into production application architectures
• Understanding ofagentic flow design tool calling memory patterns human-in-the-loop checkpoints and failure recovery in multi-step agent workflows
• Experience withRAG pipeline architecture embedding generation vector store design (OpenSearch pgvector or similar) and query-time retrieval patterns
• Ability to define architectural standards for LLM reliability: structured outputs guardrails observability for model behavior and prompt engineering governance

Application & API Architecture

• Proven ability to design and governRESTful and GraphQL API contractsat scale versioning strategies federation patterns type-safe tooling (OpenAPI tRPC GraphQL Code Generator)
• Experience withfrontend architectureat platform scale: on AWS (CloudFront ) monorepo tooling (Turborepo/Nx) and how front-end and back-end contracts evolve together

Security & Observability

• Deep understanding ofsecurity architecture: IAM least-privilege design secrets management (Secrets Manager SSM Parameter Store) encryption patterns and network segmentation
• Strong experience withdistributed observability: CloudWatch X-Ray Datadog defining SLAs building dashboards instrumenting services for traceability and leading incident response

Communication & Leadership

• Strong written and verbal communication you can author a clear RFC lead a contentious design review and explain a complex architectural tradeoff to a non-technical executive
• Track record of influencing without authority: aligning multiple engineering teams on a shared direction through credibility evidence and clear thinking
• Experience defining and maintainingengineering standardsacross an organization code quality testing strategies deployment safety and architectural review processes.

Added bonus if you have

• Masters degree in Computer Science or related field
• Experience in financial services banking or insurance understanding of compliance data residency and auditability requirements
• AWS certifications: Solutions Architect Professional Data Analytics Specialty or Machine Learning Specialty
• Experience withdata mesh or data product patterns decentralized ownership with centralized governance and discoverability
• Hands-on experience withresponsible AI practices: fairness metrics bias detection explainability (SHAP/LIME) and model monitoring
• Experience withCI/CD at platform scale pipeline design deployment strategies (blue/green canary) and progressive delivery frameworks
• Experience contributing to or definingopen standards internal frameworks or open-source projects
• Familiarity withGraphQL federationfor composing distributed services across teams
  

What well bring

During your interview process our team can fill you in on all the details of our industry-leading benefits and career
development opportunities. A few highlights include:
A work environment built on teamwork flexibility and respect
Professional growth and development programs to help advance your career as well as tuition reimbursement
Team Member Vehicle Purchase Discount
Toyota Team Member Lease Vehicle Program (if applicable)
Comprehensive health care and wellness plans for your entire family
Toyota 401(k) Savings Plan featuring a company match as well as an annual retirement contribution from Toyota
regardless of whether you contribute (if applicable)
Paid holidays and paid time off
Referral services related to prenatal services adoption childcare schools and more
Tax Advantaged Accounts (Health Savings Account Health Care FSA Dependent Care FSA)
Relocation assistance (if applicable)

Belonging at Toyota

Our success begins and ends with our people. We embrace all perspectives and value unique human experiences. Respect for all is our North Star.

Applicants for our positions are considered without regard to race ethnicity national origin sex sexual orientation gender identity or expression age disability religion military or veteran status or any other characteristics protected by law.

Have a question need assistance with your application or do you require any special accommodations Please send an email to .