Company
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks across the United States that, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., serve as the central bank for the United States. The Federal Reserve promotes a collaborative and professional work environment with great opportunity to serve the public interest while supporting a technically advanced and essential piece of infrastructure for the U.S. Economy.
Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) is seeking qualified candidates for an exciting opportunity to be a part of the Solution Architecture team as an Assistant Vice President. In this role, the successful candidate will report to the Vice President of FRFS Solution Architecture and will be an integral part of leading FRFS into the future. This is an officer level position responsible for the strategic direction of the Federal Reserve Systems Financial solutions.
As a leader within the FRFS Solution Architecture team, the successful candidate will collaborate closely across FRFS Technology, Federal Reserve System Technology, Delivery and Product groups, to create integrated technology roadmaps that support the secure and reliable delivery of our business strategy and high priority objectives. Leading a team of Solution Architects, this officer is also responsible for ensuring that FRFS applications and supporting infrastructures are developed and deployed in a manner consistent with Federal Reserve System, FRFS, and industry standards.
The successful candidate will be a key member of the FRFS Architecture leadership team, with oversight on technology architecture, as well as representing this department amongst senior FRFS stakeholders, oversight bodies, and operations groups. This role requires strong relationship management skills and strategic vision with the ability to turn it into deliverable results. The role also requires experience leading and influencing complex organizations, driving planning activities, and delivering critical financial solutions that process 250+ million transactions that transfer $5+ trillion per day.
About Us
FRFS delivers a suite of payments services to financial institutions, 3rd party service providers and FinTech's via FedLine® Solutions: Fedwire®, National Settlement Service (NSS), FedCash®1, FedCash® (Automated Clearing House), and Check Services. We are currently engaged in a strategic effort to transform FRFS into a single, national, enterprise-focused organization. Over time, FRFS will offer an increasingly integrated set of Federal Reserve payment services, incorporating the new FedNowSM service upon its market entry in 2023. Through our evolved organizational structure, we will meet the needs of the marketplace for new products and services quicker, provide a more robust and unified customer experience across our financial service offerings, and create new career growth opportunities for FRFS staff.
We are seeking a leader to set the vision, strategy, values, and priorities that enable FRFS to achieve its mission. This leader must demonstrate a strategic, action-oriented mindset focused on intellectual curiosity, agility, accountability, and drive innovation. To achieve our vision for a people-focused organization with a strong collaborative and innovative culture, we expect this leader to champion an inclusive environment and demonstrate our values in how we work and interact with each other, Federal Reserve System partners and customers.
We value the diversity of our people, ideas, and experiences and are committed to building an inclusive culture that is representative of the communities we serve.
Principle Responsibilities

• Gain an understanding of current architecture and work to define the target state architecture that will achieve the payment solutions future needs
• Oversee the development of architecture for highly scalable and fault-tolerant applications that adhere to expected standards and discipline
• Introduce best practices and principles to enable consistent delivery and alignment with long-term direction including multiple 9's of availability and 24/7 uptime
• Be part of the team that establishes the future vision, strategy, and priorities that help the FRFS enterprise deliver the most reliable, efficient, and secure suite of services to our customers
• Develop, implement, and execute technology solution roadmaps, ensuring alignment with Federal Reserve System, FRFS, and industry standards while achieving FRFS business & technology objectives.
• Champion innovation efforts to automate and enhance security capabilities and processes
• Work closely with VP of Solution Architecture
• Advocate and work collaboratively within the FRFS technology organization, National IT, and the FRFS Payment Product Strategy team to ensure the secure delivery of end-to-end processes and payment capabilities

People Leadership

• Provide leadership & ongoing coaching, mentoring to a team of highly skilled solution architects that are focused on a complex set of products and technologies
• Employ and foster development of a diverse team with an appropriate mix of leadership, interpersonal, and knowledge/skills.
• Work collaboratively with department and Bank leadership to create our desired culture by nurturing an inclusive environment where we can all be our best as an organization.
• Motivate and evaluate performance of staff, which includes managing staff to identify developmental assignments and training opportunities, working with individuals on their career goals, empowering teams to make decisions, delegating responsibilities, providing feedback, and evaluating performance on any of the preceding responsibilities.
• Contribute to the full cycle of employment matters including hiring, retention and performance optimization, salary recommendations, and decisions/actions related to the termination of employment.

Leadership Competencies

• Thinking Strategically - Thinks about issues, anticipates needs, and navigates stakeholder relationships to promote the Bank's goals. Leads with the future in mind.
• Leading Inclusively - Uses diverse talents, positively impacts culture and engagement, and encourages development for all employees.
• Growing Intentionally - Expresses self-awareness and development by seeking out feedback and modifying behavior.

Knowledge & Skills

• Intellectually curious and agile, with demonstrated ability to experiment and lead innovation
• Ability to collaborate with peers to develop a vision and technical product roadmap that translates into actionable plans and results
• Develop plans, deliver, and evolve technical solutions
• Knowledge of existing and emergent best practices for highly resilient and performing solution architecture
• Ability to work cross-department with both embedded and matrixed resources in pursuit of a common objective
• Excellent influence and negotiation skills with executive and subject matter experts with the ability to facilitate discussions around complex issues to develop a common understanding and bring issues to resolution
• Demonstrated understanding of the risk assessment process, risk tolerance and ability to balance business needs and priorities against the risk of material loss
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present ideas in a variety of settings
• Ability to create visual artifacts pertaining to architecture that provide value to the implementors as well as being consumable by non-technical individuals
• Strong business acumen with ability to be a hands-on, visible, goal-oriented, and independent- minded leader who will constructively challenge the FRFS leadership team and bring leading-edge thinking to effectively guide change within the FRFS

Education & Experience

• Bachelors and/or Masters degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Information Security, or equivalent work experience
• Minimum 8 years' experience in technology, architecture and solution design, implementation, or management. Ideally includes experience with large implementations of hybrid cloud/on-prem solutions
• Demonstrated track record of designing solution architecture that achieves the current and future needs of the consumer
• Track record of successful leadership driving results and proactively managing change in a with matrixed and virtual staff
• Experience serving as a champion of building a diverse and inclusive work environment
• Direct experience implementing solution architecture that serves as a driver for solution implementations and has strong integration with FRFS IT architecture and delivery frameworks
• Architecture certifications
• Cloud certifications
• Experience with large, complex, distributed solutions
• Experience with the design and support of cloud hosted solutions
• Experience with the design, development and support of solutions that process millions of transactions per day with high availability
• Experience integrating COTS products with internally developed solutions, with the emphasis on alignment of standards and non-functional requirements
• Experience with integration of overall solutions being spread across on-prem/co-location sites and cloud
• Experience as technical lead organizing and mentoring junior and intermediate level engineers/architects
• Working knowledge of Data and Network Security Best Practices
• Experience with Payment Processing or Financial Services systems is required
• Experience leading large and diverse technology teams
• Experience with Scaled Agile is preferred

What we Offer

• Comprehensive benefits package includes medical, dental, vision, prescription drug coverage, 401k savings plan, retirement plan, paid time off, transit benefit, onsite gym, and subsidized cafeteria.
• A learning environment with opportunities to gain new skills and grow your career.

Requirements

• As a condition of employment, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago employees must comply with the Bank's ethics rules, which generally prohibit employees, their spouses/domestic partners, and minor children from owning securities, such as stock, of banks or savings associations or their affiliates, such as bank holding companies and savings and loan holding companies. If you or your spouse/domestic partner or minor child own such securities and would not be willing or able to divest them if you accepted an offer of Bank employment, you should raise this issue with the recruiter for this posting, who can provide you contact information for our ethics official if necessary.
• Candidate must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, unless the Bank grants an accommodation based on a medical condition or sincerely held religious belief.
• Ability to successfully complete thorough background security screenings. These additional screenings are initiated at the time of offer acceptance and can take several months to be completed. The successful candidate may begin work before the screening is completed; however, continued employment is contingent on acceptable screening results. The areas screened may include education/employment verification, criminal history, credit history, and reference checks.
• We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status.

Full Time / Part Time
Full time
Regular / Temporary
Regular
Job Exempt (Yes / No)
Yes
Job Category
Information Technology
Work Shift
First (United States of America)
The Federal Reserve Banks believe that diversity and inclusion among our employees is critical to our success as an organization, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. The Federal Reserve Banks are committed to equal employment opportunity for employees and job applicants in compliance with applicable law and to an environment where employees are valued for their differences.
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