Senior Payments Architect

 

We currently have a career opportunity for a Senior Payments Architect to join our team located in United States.

 

As a SeniorPayments Architect, you will provide best-fit architectural solutions for one or more projects; you will assist in defining scope and sizing of work; and anchor Proof of Concept developments. You will provide solution architecture for the business problem, platform integration with third party services, designing and developing complex features for clients' business needs.

 

The Senior Payments Architect will provide technology direction, ensures project implementation compliance, and utilizes technology research to innovate, integrate, and manage technology solutions.  You will collaborate with some of the best talent in the industry to create and implement innovative high quality solutions, participate in Sales and various pursuits focused on our clients' business needs.

 

This role is considered part of the Business Unit Leadership team and may mentor Junior Architects and /or development team members. 

 

Perficient is always looking for the best and brightest talent and we need you! We’re a quickly-growing, global digital consulting leader, and we’re transforming the world’s largest enterprises and biggest brands. You’ll work with the latest technologies, expand your skills, and become a part of our global community of talented, diverse, and knowledgeable colleagues.

 

 

Responsibilities

• Own the reference architecture for the payments platform: service boundaries, data flows, event models, and the contracts between internal domains (authorization, ledger, settlement, disputes, reconciliation, reporting).
• Design systems where correctness is paramount — idempotency, exactly-once semantics where they matter, consistent ledgering, and graceful handling of partial failures, timeouts, and network splits with external processors.
• Lead integrations with payment service providers, acquirers, card schemes, and banking partners, translating scheme rules and processor specs into robust internal designs.
• Define the money-movement data model and the source-of-truth ledger, ensuring every transaction is traceable, auditable, and reconcilable.
• Set standards for resilience and operability: retries, circuit breakers, reconciliation loops, and the observability needed to detect and diagnose stuck or mismatched funds quickly.
• Embed security and compliance into the architecture — PCI DSS scope minimization, tokenization, encryption of sensitive data, and strong authentication flows (e.g. 3-D Secure / SCA where applicable).
• Review designs and code for the highest-risk paths, and mentor engineers on building payment systems that are correct under failure, not just under happy-path conditions.
• Evaluate build-vs-buy decisions across processors, orchestration layers, fraud tooling, and ledger platforms, and make clear, well-reasoned recommendations.
• Work with product and finance to translate commercial and regulatory requirements into technical designs, and communicate trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

 

Qualifications

• Substantial experience architecting or leading the design of production payment systems, ideally at meaningful transaction volume.
• Deep understanding of the payments lifecycle: authorization, capture, settlement, refunds, chargebacks/disputes, and reconciliation.
• Strong grasp of distributed systems fundamentals — consistency models, idempotency, concurrency, eventual consistency, and designing for partial failure.
• Practical experience integrating with at least one category of external payment infrastructure: card processors/acquirers, PSPs/gateways, or bank rails.
• Hands-on experience with payment orchestration platforms — routing and failover across multiple processors, smart/least-cost routing, retry and cascading logic, and vaulting/tokenization — whether built in-house or using a commercial layer (e.g. Spreedly, Gr4vy, Primer, BR-DGE).
• Solid understanding of double-entry ledgering and why financial systems favor immutable, auditable records over mutable balances.
• Working knowledge of payments security and compliance: PCI DSS, tokenization, encryption, and secure handling of cardholder or account data.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and support data-informed task execution. 
• Familiarity with AI-enhanced platforms is a plus. 
• A solid understanding of AI capabilities and limitations including ethical considerations is expected
• Ability to lead through influence — writing clear design docs, running architecture reviews, and aligning multiple teams on a shared direction.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with payment messaging standards such as ISO 8583 (card) and ISO 20022 (bank/real-time rails).
• Experience with real-time payment rails (e.g. FedNow, RTP, SEPA Instant, Faster Payments, UPI) or ACH/SEPA batch schemes.
• Exposure to 3-D Secure 2.x, Strong Customer Authentication (PSD2/SCA), and network tokenization.
• Experience with fraud and risk systems, and how they interact with authorization decisioning.
• Background in a regulated environment (banking, EMI, money transmitter) and familiarity with the associated audit and reporting obligations.
• Multi-currency, FX, or cross-border settlement experience.
• Experience with event-driven architectures, and with the cloud and data platforms we use ([e.g. AWS/GCP/Azure, Kafka, your primary languages]).

 

ABOUT THE TEAM

Our Financial Services team empowers leading financial institutions to accelerate digital transformation and achieve sustainable growth. We bring together deep industry expertise and innovative technologies, including AI, to help clients reimagine their operations, enhance customer experiences, and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving market. From intelligent data platforms and customer analytics to AI-driven risk management and compliance solutions, we help firms operate more efficiently, build loyalty, and drive measurable impact.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The salary range for this position takes into consideration a variety of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, level of experience, applicable office location, training, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. The new hire salary range displays the minimum and maximum salary targets for this position across all US locations, and the range has not been adjusted for any specific state differentials. It is not typical for a candidate to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the unique facts and circumstances regarding each candidate. A reasonable estimate of the current salary range for this position is $ 92118 to $ 202730. Please note that the salary range posted reflects the base salary only and does not include benefits or any potential variable compensation programs. Information regarding the benefits available for this position are in our benefits overview.

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About UsPerficient is the global AI and technology consulting firm disrupting the traditional consulting model. Powered by our 7,000+ advisors, engineers, and designers, Perficient implements AI-first solutions that break conventions and deliver outcomes that matter. Proudly serving clients that represent the world’s most innovative brands, and in collaboration with our powerful technology partner ecosystem, we bring deep industry expertise and data-driven design to redefine how businesses run and succeed. Perficient is different. For real. Learn more at perficient.com.