Principal AI Architect

About this role:

Wells Fargo is seeking a visionary Principal Systems Architect to shape the future of our Consumer Operations Technology landscape.

In this strategic and highly influential role, you will define and drive the target-state architecture across a broad ecosystem of platforms and products that power Consumer Operations. Reporting directly to the Head of Architecture for Consumer Operations, you’ll serve as a trusted technical leader and an accelerator for transformation across the organization.

As a Principal Systems Architect, you will partner closely with Engineering, Business, and Product leaders to design and deliver GenAI-driven, agentic architectures that elevate performance, reduce complexity, and transform customer and agent experiences.

You will lead the evolution from traditional deterministic systems to intelligent, autonomous, and semi-autonomous agent ecosystems, leveraging large language models, real-time decisioning, and orchestrated multi-agent workflows to drive adaptive, context-aware outcomes. Your scope spans mission-critical domains, including Contact Center Operations, Fraud & Claims Management, Consumer Lending Operations, Servicing & Default Management, and Wholesale Operations—where you will:

• Architect agentic workflows that enable dynamic task orchestration across systems, data, and human agents
• Embed GenAI and autonomous agents to augment decision-making, improve productivity, and enhance customer engagement
• Design intent-driven, context-aware platforms that continuously learn and optimize outcomes
• Establish scalable patterns for trust, governance, explainability, and responsible AI in regulated environments

This role provides a unique opportunity to shape the AI-first technology foundation that powers operations at scale impacting millions of customers while defining the future of intelligent enterprise systems.

If you’re passionate about modern architecture, thrive in large‑scale transformation, and want to leave a lasting impact across a Fortune 500 enterprise, this role puts you at the center of that innovation.

In this role, you will:

• Act as an advisor to leadership to develop or influence applications, network, information security, database, operating systems, or web technologies for highly complex business and technical needs across multiple groups
• Lead the strategy and resolution of highly complex and unique challenges requiring in-depth evaluation across multiple areas or the enterprise, delivering solutions that are long-term, large-scale and require vision, creativity, innovation, advanced analytical and inductive thinking
• Translate advanced technology experience, an in-depth knowledge of the organizations tactical and strategic business objectives, the enterprise technological environment, the organization structure, and strategic technological opportunities and requirements into technical engineering solutions
• Provide vision, direction and expertise to leadership on implementing innovative and significant business solutions
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Innovation - Promote a data-driven culture and drive architecture led-innovation.
• Lead architecture alignment for AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI solutions with Model Risk Management (MRM) and Artificial Intelligence Risk Review (AIRR) governance requirements, ensuring designs support required risk assessments, approvals, and enterprise control expectations.
• Partner with Model Risk Management, BCM, Legal, Compliance, Cyber, Data Use Assessment, and Risk Assessable Unit (RAU)-aligned stakeholders to ensure AI-enabled solutions are designed for appropriate model risk ranking, validation, explainability, control uplift, and readiness for AIRR and related tollgates where applicable.
• Define architecture patterns and engineering guardrails that support responsible AI, including traceability, monitoring, auditability, human-in-the-loop controls, secure data usage, resiliency, and change management across the AI service lifecycle.
• Ensure target-state architectures and implementation roadmaps account for post-deployment monitoring, control sustainability, and re-assessment triggers associated with model changes, scope expansion, data/input changes, platform changes, and evolving regulatory requirements.
• Advise business, product, and engineering leaders on how to accelerate AI adoption while meeting enterprise expectations for risk governance, model oversight, policy a…