Principal Data Architect at LPL Financial Holdings in Charlotte, NC

Principal Data Architect
Location: Fort Mill/Charlotte
Where Ambition Meets Innovation
Build a career that matches all your initiative with an impressive dose of innovation. From cutting-edge resources and a collaborative environment to the freedom to make an impact and more, you’ll find the ingredients you need at LPL Financial to shape your success while helping clients pursue their financial goals.
Job Overview
We are seeking a visionary and experienced Principal Data Architect to define and lead the enterprise data architecture strategy for cloud-native data platforms and systems of record. This role will drive the evolution of modern data ecosystems, enabling scalable, secure, resilient, and trusted data solutions that support business growth, digital transformation, and data-driven decision making.
The successful candidate will partner with Product, Engineering, Security, Operations, and Enterprise Architecture teams to establish architectural standards, modernization roadmaps, and technology strategies while providing technical leadership across multiple strategic initiatives.
Key Responsibilities
Data Strategy & Architecture Leadership
Define and drive enterprise data architecture strategy, roadmaps, and target-state blueprints.
Lead architectural initiatives and collaborate with product and engineering teams to design scalable and sustainable solutions.
Establish architecture standards, design principles, reference architectures, and best practices for enterprise data platforms.
Translate business objectives into technology strategies and architecture roadmaps.
Contribute to enterprise architecture governance, technology standards, and modernization initiatives.
Modern Data Platform Architecture
Design and implement cloud-native data platforms leveraging AWS services and modern architectural patterns.
Lead the adoption of Lakehouse architectures utilizing open table formats such as Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake.
Drive implementation of domain-oriented architectures, Data Products, Data Mesh principles, and self-service data platforms where appropriate.
Define enterprise standards for data domains, metadata management, data catalogs, lineage, and data discovery.
Architect scalable data ingestion, processing, storage, and distribution patterns supporting batch, streaming, and near real-time workloads.
Systems of Record & Enterprise Data Management
Establish architectural patterns for authoritative Systems of Record and Books of Record.
Define strategies for data ownership, data integrity, auditability, lineage, historical data management, and reconciliation.
Drive enterprise data governance, quality, observability, and metadata management capabilities.
Partner with business and technology teams to create trusted, reusable, and governed data assets.
Security, Resiliency & Operational Excellence
Architect secure data platforms including authentication, authorization, encryption, key management, and fine-grained access controls.
Design highly available, multi-region cloud architectures supporting resiliency, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements.
Define non-functional requirements covering scalability, reliability, performance, recoverability, and operational supportability.
Establish observability, monitoring, operational health, and platform reliability standards.
Leadership & Mentorship
Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance across multiple teams and programs.
Mentor architects and engineers on modern data architecture principles and cloud-native design patterns.
Communicate complex technical concepts and trade-offs to executive leadership and business stakeholders.
Drive adoption of architecture best practices through governance, scorecards, and technical reviews.
What are we looking for?
We’re looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness, act with integrity, and are driven to help our clients succeed. We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work.
Requirements:
10+ years of experience in Data Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, or large-scale data platform engineering.
10+ years strong expertise in AWS cloud services and platform architecture.
5+ years experience of Data Lakes, Data Warehouses, Lakehouse architectures, and modern distributed data platforms.
10+ years experience with domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, and enterprise integration patterns.
5+ years experience of enterprise security architectures including IAM, authentication, authorization, encryption, and data protection. Experience with metadata management, data catalogs, lineage, governance, and observability frameworks.
Preferences:
AWS Solutions Architect Professional, AWS Data Engineer, or related cloud certifications.
Experience implementing Lakehouse architectures using Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or similar technologies.
Experience with AWS DataZone, Lake Formation, Glue Data Catalog, Athena, EMR, Redshift, and S3-based data platforms.
Experience with Data Mesh, Data Products, and domain-oriented ownership models.
Experience building enterprise metadata, lineage, data governance, and self-service data platforms.
Experience designing active-active and active-passive multi-region architectures.
Experience supporting large-scale modernization and digital transformation initiatives.
Experience in financial services, wealth management, brokerage, banking, insurance, or other regulated industries.
Understanding of wealth management products, client servicing models, operational processes, and associated data domains is highly desirable.
Familiarity with SAFe and Agile delivery methodologies.

Pay Range:
$155,942.00 - $259,869.00

Actual base salary varies based on factors, including but not limited to, relevant skill, prior experience, education, base salary of internal peers, demonstrated performance, and geographic location. Additionally, LPL Total Rewards package is highly competitive, designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play – such as 401K matching, health benefits, employee stock options, paid time off, volunteer time off, and more. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that LPL has to offer!

Company Overview:
LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA) is among the fastest growing wealth management firms in the U.S. As a leader in the financial advisor-mediated marketplace(6) , LPL supports over 32,000 financial advisors and the wealth management practices of approximately 1,100 financial institutions, servicing and custodying approximately $2.3 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets on behalf of approximately 8 million Americans. The firm provides a wide range of advisor affiliation models, investment solutions, fintech tools and practice management services, ensuring that advisors and institutions have the flexibility to choose the business model, services, and technology resources they need to run thriving businesses. For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl.com.

At LPL, independence means that advisors and institution leaders have the freedom they deserve to choose the business model, services, and technology resources that allow them to run a thriving business. They have the flexibility to do business their way. And they have the freedom to manage their client relationships, because they know their clients best. Simply put, we take care of our advisors and institutions, so they can take care of their clients.

For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl.com.

Join the LPL team and help us make a difference by turning life’s aspirations into financial realities. Please log in or create an account to apply to this position. Principals only. EOE.

Information on Interviews:
LPL will only communicate with a job applicant directly from an @lplfinancial.com email address and will never conduct an interview online or in a chatroom forum.  During an interview, LPL will not request any form of payment from the applicant, or information regarding an applicant’s bank or credit card.  Should you have any questions regarding the application process, please contact LPL’s Human Resources Solutions Center at (855) 575-6947.

EAC 5.19.26
Additional Locations: New York, NY, Austin, TX