VP, AI Cloud Solution Architect (L12)

About Synchrony

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a premier consumer financial services company delivering one of the industry’s most complete digitally enabled product suites. Our experience, expertise and scale encompass a broad spectrum of industries including digital, health and wellness, retail, telecommunications, home, auto, outdoors, pet and more. We have recently been ranked #2 among India’s Best Companies to Work for by Great Place to Work. We were among the Top 50 India’s Best Workplaces in Building a Culture of Innovation by All by GPTW and Top 25 among Best Workplaces in BFSI by GPTW. We have also been recognized by AmbitionBox Employee Choice Awards among the Top 20 Mid-Sized Companies, ranked #3 among Top Rated Companies for Women, and Top-Rated Financial Services Companies. We provide best-in-class employee benefits and programs that cater to work-life integration and overall well-being. We provide career advancement and upskilling opportunities, focusing on Advancing Diverse Talent to take up leadership roles.

Organizational Overview

Synchrony's Engineering Team is a dynamic and innovative team dedicated to driving technological excellence. As a member of this Team, you'll play a pivotal role in designing and developing cutting-edge tech stack and solutions that redefine industry standards. The Credit Card that we use every day to purchase our essentials and later settle the bills - A simple process that we all are used to on a day to day basis. Now, consider the vast complexity hidden behind this seemingly simple process, operating tirelessly for millions of cardholders. The sheer volume of data processed is mind-boggling. Fortunately, advanced technology stands ready to automate and manage this constant torrent of information, ensuring smooth transactions around the clock, 365 days a year. Our collaborative environment encourages creative problem-solving and fosters career growth. Join us to work on diverse projects, from fintech to data analytics, and contribute to shaping the future of technology. If you're passionate about engineering and innovation, Synchrony's Engineering Team is the place to be.

Role Summary/Purpose

The VP, AI Cloud Solution Architect is a strategic technical leader for the Enterprise AI Platform and Agent Building teams. This role defines and drives the end-to-end architecture for cloud-native AI and agentic AI solutions (primarily on AWS). You will provide cloud and AI platform architecture guidance, ensure architectural coherence across infrastructure and agent solutions, and partner with senior business and technology leaders to deliver secure, scalable, and compliant AI capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end cloud architecture vision for the Enterprise AI Platform and Agent Building teams, aligning platform capabilities and agent solutions with enterprise strategy, security, and compliance requirements.
• Guide design and implementation of cloud foundations for AI/agentic AI solutions (primarily AWS), including container platforms, compute, and data/RAG infrastructure (e.g., PostgreSQL, Redshift, and related services).
• Define reference architectures, patterns, and guardrails for gateways and integration layers (e.g., MCP-style gateways, API gateways such as Kong or equivalent, LLM routing/gateway patterns) and ensure consistent adoption across teams.
• Partner with platform engineers to shape identity, security, and policy design (IAM/security policies, federation/SSO, network controls) for multi-tenant enterprise AI platforms.
• Provide architectural oversight (hands-on where needed) for platform components such as memory stores, policy enforcement engines, observability pipelines, and browser/tooling experiences.
• Collaborate with agent teams on orchestration and application design using modern agent frameworks/SDKs (e.g., AWS Strands SDK, Bedrock AgentCore SDK, LangChain/LangGraph/CrewAI or similar), and help teams adopt platform primitives and security patterns.
• Review and guide technical designs for backend services and frontends, ensuring robust integration with platform APIs and standards (REST/SOAP/GraphQL, OAuth2, streaming).
• Establish and evolve evaluation and observability strategies for agents and the platform (CloudWatch/X-Ray, Splunk, New Relic or equivalents), including SLIs/SLOs, RAG quality metrics, and agent success criteria.
• Mentor and coach engineers, solution architects, and senior developers; help build a high-performing architecture community across both teams.
• Engage with product, risk, compliance, and business stakeholders to translate business outcomes into architecture roadmaps, milestones, and technical decision frameworks.
• Lead architectural assessments of new AI capabilities (multi-LLM, multimodal, new gateways, or tooling) and drive build/buy/integrate recommendations.
• Ensure architectural documentation, diagrams, and decision records are current, accessible, and understandable to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Perform other duties and/or special projects as assigned.

Required Skills/Knowledge

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field and 10+ years of experience across multiple IT areas including application development, platform engineering, and/or architecture; or in lieu of a degree, 14+ years of relevant experience.
• Strong experience in cloud and/or platform architecture (AWS preferred, comparable cloud experience acceptable), including modern cloud-native architectures (microservices, APIs, containers).
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and deliver in new technical areas. Direct experience with agentic AI is beneficial but not mandatory if you have strong architecture fundamentals and a clear upskilling mindset.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and automation (Terraform preferred; CloudFormation/CDK or similar acceptable) and exposure to CI/CD practices (Jenkins or equivalent).
• Experience or strong familiarity with enterprise integration patterns (API gateways such as Kong or equivalent, routing, security/guardrails, API management concepts).
• Working knowledge of enterprise identity and security patterns (roles/policies, federation/SSO, OAuth2/token management, network/security segmentation).
• Experience with observability practices/tools (e.g., CloudWatch, X-Ray, Splunk, New Relic or equivalents) or a proven ability to implement operational monitoring for distributed systems.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence, align stakeholders, and simplify complex topics for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Proven technical leadership (design reviews, standards, mentoring, driving cross-team alignment).

Desired Skills/Knowledge

• Experience building or operating enterprise AI platforms (e.g., Bedrock Guardrails, AgentCore-style gateway deployments, or similar).
• Multi-model LLM gateway experience (AWS Nova, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini), including routing strategies, cost optimization, latency, and SLAs.
• Hands-on experience with agent frameworks (CrewAI, LangChain, Strands SDK, Bedrock AgentCore SDK, or equivalents).
• Financial services experience with awareness of regulatory, risk, and compliance constraints.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, etc.).
• Experience with multimodal solutions and advanced RAG pipelines with evaluation frameworks.
• Familiarity with emerging agent protocols (A2A, ACP, AP2) or similar.

Eligibility Criteria

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field and 10+ years of experience across multiple IT areas including application development, platform engineering, and/or architecture; or in lieu of a degree, 14+ years of relevant experience.

Work Timings

Work Timings: 2 PM – 11 PM IST. This role qualifies for Enhanced Flexibility offered in Synchrony India and will require the incumbent to be available between 06:00 AM Eastern Time – 11:30 AM Eastern Time (timings are anchored to US Eastern hours and will adjust twice a year locally). This window is for meetings with India and US teams. The remaining hours will be flexible for the employee to choose. Exceptions may apply periodically due to business needs.

Work Arrangement

We are proud to offer flexibility at Synchrony. Our way of working allows you the option to work from home or workspaces in our Regional Engagement Hubs—Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, or Delhi/NCR. Occasionally you may be required to commute or travel to Hyderabad or one of the Regional Engagement Hubs for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, trainings, and culture events.

Key skills/competency

• AWS Cloud Architecture
• AI Platform Design
• Agentic AI Solutions
• Enterprise Integration Patterns
• Infrastructure-as-Code
• Observability & Monitoring
• Technical Leadership
• Cross-functional Collaboration
• Security & Compliance
• Financial Services Technology