Principal Architect

Overview Who we are Collaborative. Respectful. A place to dream and do. These are just a few words that describe what life is like at Toyota. As one of the world’s most admired brands, Toyota is growing and leading the future of mobility through innovative, high-quality solutions designed to enhance lives and delight those we serve. We’re looking for talented team members who want to Dream. Do. Grow. with us. An important part of the Toyota family is Toyota Financial Services (TFS), the finance and insurance brand for Toyota and Lexus in North America. While TFS is a separate business entity, it is an essential part of this world-changing company- delivering on Toyota's vision to move people beyond what's possible. At TFS, you will help create best-in-class customer experience in an innovative, collaborative environment. Toyota does not offer support or sponsorship of job applicants for employment-based visas or any other work authorization for this role now or in the future. You must have the right to work in the United States and not require Toyota 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 the future. You should not apply for this role if you will require Toyota to assist with immigration support or sponsorship now or in the future. Who we're looking for At TFS, we're building a greenfield, cloud-native engineering platform that will redefine how Toyota Financial Services delivers digital products to millions of customers. We're 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 it's not an advisory role. It's 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. You'll 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 you'll 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 Bachelor's 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 platf