Principal Engineer - Product Group Engineering Modernisation & AI Adoption

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions, enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed in the right ways, all more confidently and more often—that’s what we call the courage to thrive.   We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.

As a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bank, Elavon is committed to building the platforms and ecosystems that help over 1.5 million customers around the world to achieve their financial goals—no matter what they need. From transaction processing to customer service, to driving innovation and launching new products, we’re building a range of tailored payment solutions powered by the latest technology. As part of our team, you can explore what motivates and energizes your career goals: partnering with our customers, our communities, and each other.

We actively uphold transparent and fair hiring practices that support individual opportunity, inclusive culture, and career mobility across all levels of our organisation.

We offer meaningful opportunities for growth, a culture of inclusion, and a strong commitment to transparency and integrity in everything we do.

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Principal Engineer to drive engineering excellence across our technology portfolio. This role will lead the adoption of AI-enabled engineering practices, establish enterprise architecture standards, mentor engineering teams, and guide the modernization of legacy platforms into scalable, cloud-native solutions.

The successful candidate will have demonstrated success modernizing legacy platforms, establishing enterprise engineering standards, scaling API and microservice architectures, driving AI adoption, and helping teams mature their product operating model, Agile delivery practices, and engineering disciplines.

They are recognized not only for technical expertise but also for their ability to elevate entire engineering organizations through influence, coaching, and leadership.

The successful candidate will serve as a technical authority and trusted advisor to engineering leaders, architects, and development teams, helping accelerate delivery while improving quality, resiliency, security, and operational efficiency.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role requiring deep expertise in API architecture, microservices, domain-driven design, cloud-native engineering, and AI-assisted software development.

Key Responsibilities:

Technology Strategy & Architecture

• Define and maintain engineering standards, reference architectures, and best practices across the organization.
• Lead architecture reviews and provide technical governance for strategic initiatives.
• Drive adoption of modern engineering patterns including:
  • Domain-Driven Design (DDD)
  • Event-Driven Architecture
  • API-First Design
  • Microservices
  • Cloud-Native Platforms
  • AI-Augmented Software Engineering
• Establish target-state architectures and technology roadmaps for modernization programs.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture and Engineering Leaders to align technology investments with business strategy.

AI Adoption & Engineering Transformation

• Champion the adoption of Generative AI and AI-assisted development capabilities across engineering teams.
• Develop AI engineering standards, guardrails, governance models, and best practices.
• Coach teams on effective use of AI tools for:
  • Code generation
  • Refactoring
  • Test creation
  • Documentation
  • Legacy modernization
  • Vulnerability remediation
  • Developer productivity improvements
• Establish measurable outcomes and adoption metrics for AI-enabled engineering.
• Foster an AI-native engineering culture focused on continuous learning and responsible innovation.

API Architecture & Domain Modelling

• Lead enterprise API architecture and API governance initiatives.
• Define standards for REST, GraphQL, event streaming, and integration architectures.
• Drive domain modelling activities that enable reusable business capabilities and scalable service design.
• Ensure APIs are secure, resilient, observable, and aligned with enterprise security requirements.
• Promote consistency in domain boundaries, service ownership, versioning, documentation, and lifecycle management.

Legacy Modernization & Engineering Excellence

• Lead technical direction for modernization of legacy applications and platforms.
• Define migration strategies from monolithic architectures to modern service-based and cloud-native solutions.
• Drive adoption of modern technology stacks, automation, CI/CD, DevSecOps, and platform engineering practices.
• Identify opportunities to improve reliability, maintainability, scalability, and developer experience.
• Reduce technical debt and strengthen engineering sustainability.

Coaching, Mentoring & Leadership

• Act as a senior technical mentor to engineers, architects, and engineering managers.
• Build technical capability across teams through coaching, technical workshops, design reviews, and communities of practice.
• Influence engineering decisions through expertise rather than direct authority.
• Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Support talent development and succession planning across engineering organizations.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, or related field (master’s preferred).
• 15+ years of software engineering experience.
• 5+ years operating in a Principal Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, Chief Architect, or similar senior technical leadership role.
• Proven experience leading large-scale architecture and modernization initiatives.
• Deep expertise in:
  • API Architecture
  • Microservices
  • Domain-Driven Design
  • Event-Driven Systems
  • Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
  • DevSecOps and CI/CD
• Strong software engineering background in Java, .NET, Go, Python, or similar enterprise technology stacks.
• Experience defining engineering standards and governance models at scale.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Experience

• Leading enterprise AI adoption programs.
• Generative AI, LLM, Agentic AI, and AI platform implementations.
• Financial services or highly regulated industry experience.
• Platform engineering and developer productivity initiatives.
• Kubernetes and container-based architectures.
• Enterprise integration patterns and API management platforms.
• Engineering transformation programs involving multiple teams or global organizations.

Success Measures

In the first 12–18 months, the Principal Engineer will be expected to:

• Establish an enterprise engineering standards framework.
• Increase adoption of AI-enabled development practices across engineering teams.
• Improve software delivery productivity and quality metrics.
• Define and implement API architecture and governance standards.
• Accelerate legacy modernization initiatives.
• Reduce technical debt and security vulnerabilities.
• Improve developer experience and engineering effectiveness.
• Build a strong engineering community of practice for architecture, AI, and modern engineering.

Leadership Attributes

• Strategic thinker with strong execution focus.
• Influences through credibility and technical excellence.
• Acts as an enterprise owner rather than a team owner.
• Passionate about coaching and developing engineers.
• Challenges the status quo while balancing risk and delivery outcomes.
• Leads with curiosity, innovation, accountability, and urgency.

Accessibility

We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment experience. If you need adjustments at any stage of the application or hiring process, please contact your recruiter for guidance and support.

Total Rewards

U.S. Bank is committed to fair, equitable, and transparent compensation practices in line with local regulatory and legal requirements. Our total rewards approach is designed to attract, retain, and support top talent while ensuring equal pay for work of equal value.

We offer a market-competitive compensation package that includes:

• Clearly defined salary ranges aligned with industry benchmarks and internal equity standards.

• Performance-based incentives for eligible employees (as defined by relevant plan rules), awarded through transparent, objective criteria that recognize both individual and company performance.

• Inclusive equitable benefits that are accessible to all employees and focused around our 3 main pillars of financial wellbeing, health & wellness).

• Continuous development opportunities including training, education support, and career progression pathways based on inclusive and transparent criteria.

• Employee recognition programs that celebrate achievements and milestones for all.

We regularly review our compensation and benefits to ensure they remain competitive, inclusive, and responsive to employee needs and market trends. Further details of the compensation package will be provided upon application.

We encourage candidates to explore the full value of our offer, including monetary and non-monetary benefits, at Employee benefits and development | U.S. Bank | Elavon.

Closing Date

Posting may be closed earlier due to high volume of applicants.

We aim to provide timely updates throughout the process and encourage early applications to ensure consideration.