Software Engineering Lead Architect

Genesis10 is currently seeking a Software Engineering Lead/Architect for a Contract-to-Hire position with a Regional Financial Institution located in Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Charlotte, NC; Detroit, MI; or Chicago, IL. This is a 3+ month contract-to-hire opportunity. This is a hybrid opportunity.

Compensation: $85.00 - $100.00 per hour, W2, based on qualifications

Position Overview:
We are seeking a highly experienced Software Engineering Lead/Architect with 15 years in the banking and financial services industry, with deep, hands-on expertise across payment rails and transaction processing ecosystems. This role is focused on end-to-end payments architecture, emphasizing real-world experience designing, scaling, and optimizing high-volume payment platforms across card, ACH, wire, and real-time payment systems. The ideal candidate will bring a strong blend of payment rails expertise, card network knowledge, and core payment infrastructure design, along with proven leadership delivering resilient, secure, and highly performant systems in regulated environments. Experience working within GCP-based architectures is highly preferred.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the architecture and design of end-to-end payment processing systems across multiple rails (ACH, wires, RTP, cards, cross-border)
• Provide hands-on leadership in building high-volume, low-latency transaction platforms
• Drive architecture decisions across payment orchestration, routing, clearing, and settlement systems
• Partner with product, operations, and risk teams to align payment systems with fraud, compliance, and regulatory requirements
• Guide engineering teams on resiliency, scalability, and fault-tolerant design for mission-critical payment systems
• Support modernization efforts of legacy payment platforms while ensuring production stability

Primary Requirements:

• Deep hands-on experience with payment rails: ACH, Fedwire, CHIPS
• RTP / instant payments (e.g., TCH RTP, FedNow)
• Card networks (Visa, Client, Client)
• SWIFT and cross-border payment flows
• Strong understanding of Payment lifecycle (authorization, clearing, settlement, reconciliation), API Modernization, Payment orchestration and routing logic, Issuer vs. acquirer processing flows, Wires, Card Expert, UI, and Infrastructure
• Experience with high-throughput transaction systems (real-time batch)
• Solid knowledge of payment infrastructure, including processors, switches, and gateways
• Familiarity with ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 messaging standards
• Proven experience designing large-scale, distributed payment platforms
• Strong background in Event-driven systems, messaging-based architectures, Service-oriented or microservices architectures, and High-availability and fault-tolerant system design
• Experience with cloud-native architectures, preferably Google Cloud Platform (GCP): GKE, Pub/Sub, BigQuery, Cloud Spanner, etc
• Ability to balance real-time processing vs batch optimization based on use case
• Expertise in Low-latency system design for transaction processing, Horizontal scalability and throughput optimization, and Multi-region deployments and failover strategies
• Experience implementing Disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity and Observability (monitoring, tracing, alerting) in payment environments
• Working knowledge of PCI-DSS , KYC/AML, FFIEC, NACHA rules
• Experience integrating Fraud detection and risk scoring systems and Tokenization and encryption frameworks
• Strong understanding of secure payment data handling and auditability

Desired Skills:

• Experience working with card issuing or acquiring platforms
• Exposure to payment processors or fintech ecosystems
• Prior experience modernizing core payment platforms (not strictly API-led)
• Familiarity with hybrid or multi-cloud environments

Only candidates available and ready to work directly as Genesis10 employees will be considered for this position.

If you have the described qualifications and are interested in this exciting opportunity, please apply!

Ranked a Top Staffing Firm in the U.S. by Staffing Industry Analysts for six consecutive years, Genesis10 puts thousands of consultants and employees to work across the United States every year in contract, contract-for-hire, and permanent placement roles. With more than 300 active clients, Genesis10 provides access to many of the Fortune 100 firms and a variety of mid-market organizations across the full spectrum of industry verticals.

For contract roles, Genesis10 offers the benefits listed below. If this is a perm-placement opportunity, our recruiter can talk you through the unique benefits offered for that particular client. Benefits of Working with Genesis10:

• Access to hundreds of clients, most who have been working with Genesis10 for 5-20+ years
• The opportunity to have a career-home in Genesis10; many of our consultants have been working exclusively with Genesis10 for years
• Access to an experienced, caring recruiting team (more than 7 years of experience, on average)
• Behavioral Health Platform
• Medical, Dental, Vision
• Health Savings Account
• Voluntary Hospital Indemnity (Critical Illness & Accident)
• Voluntary Term Life Insurance
• 401K
• Sick Pay (for applicable states/municipalities)
• Commuter Benefits (Dallas, NYC, SF, and Illinois)

For multiple years running, Genesis10 has been recognized as a Top Staffing Firm in the U.S., as a Best Company for Work-Life Balance, as a Best Company for Career Growth, for Diversity, and for Leadership, amongst others. To learn more and to view all of our available career opportunities, please visit us at our website.

Genesis10 is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

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