Director, Blockchain Platform Architect – Technology Incubation – R&D
"What You'll Be Doing"
About This Role
Success in the role is measured by: blockchain initiatives having clear architecture direction, reusable patterns, documented tradeoffs, and measurable progress toward incubation milestones; security, risk, compliance, and operational readiness requirements being built into platform design early rather than late; engineering teams moving faster through common standards, reference architectures, reusable services, and clear decision records; and executive stakeholders having clear visibility into platform maturity, technical risks, dependencies, and decisions required for enterprise adoption.
What You'll Be Doing
Own the target-state architecture and technical roadmap for blockchain and digital asset platform capabilities, including platform components, service boundaries, integration patterns, APIs, data models, and operational controls.
Design secure, scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems supporting experimentation, pilot delivery, and production use.
Evaluate blockchain protocols, node infrastructure, custody patterns, smart contract frameworks, interoperability models, and blockchain data access strategies.
Partner with engineering teams to guide implementation, review designs, resolve complex technical tradeoffs, and establish reusable platform patterns.
Collaborate with security, risk, legal, compliance, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure platform designs meet enterprise controls, regulatory expectations, defense-in-depth principles, and operational resilience requirements.
Define architecture documentation, reference models, decision records, design standards, and graduation criteria needed to move capabilities from prototype to sustainable ownership.
Serve as a technical advisor to the Director of Technology and executive stakeholders, translating blockchain architecture choices into business value, risk implications, investment needs, and adoption paths.
What We're Looking For
Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related technical field.
10+ years of experience in software engineering, including delivering platforms or complex technology initiatives.
Strong technical foundation in modern architectures, cloud-native development, and engineering best practices, with the ability to guide technical decisions without being the primary implementer.
Demonstrated ability to influence across organizational boundaries and collaborate effectively with Product, Risk, Legal/Compliance, Security, and business stakeholders.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to align leaders and convey technical tradeoffs clearly.
Deep experience designing and operating enterprise platforms, distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, APIs, event-driven patterns, observability, resiliency, and DevSecOps practices.
Strong understanding of blockchain fundamentals, distributed ledger technologies, consensus mechanisms, cryptography, smart contracts, tokenization concepts, node operations, custody models, and digital asset transaction flows.
Experience applying security and control patterns such as authentication, authorization, encryption, key management, secrets management, secure coding, vulnerability management, monitoring, and incident response readiness.
Ability to work across ambiguous, emerging technology spaces while producing practical architecture artifacts, decision frameworks, and implementation guidance.
Clear communication skills, with the ability to influence engineers, architects, product partners, risk stakeholders, and senior leaders.
Bonus Points
An advanced degree is a plus.
Salary Range
USD 219,000 - 274,000 per year
Ready to Apply?
To submit your application for this position, please visit Charles Schwab Inc.'s official website and follow their application process.