Overview The Principal Systems Engineer provides senior technical leadership and hands-on systems engineering expertise in support of the Navy Federal Financial Group portfolio. This role is responsible for analyzing, designing, configuring, supporting, and sustaining complex systems and products that enable secure, scalable, and compliant business capabilities including Digital Investing, Wealth Management, Lead Management, Compliance, and Customer Relationship Management. The position serves as a recognized technical authority, ensuring seamless integration across a multitude of platforms and system components while maintaining operational resilience and adherence to enterprise quality and change control standards.
Operating with a high degree of independence, the Principal Systems Engineer translates NFFG strategies into end-to-end technical solutions by leading solution planning, architecture, implementation, integration, and operational readiness. The role proactively identifies and addresses gaps in support processes, documentation, and tooling; guides complex configuration, debugging, and infrastructure support activities; and mitigates architectural and delivery risk. Through close partnership with business and technology stakeholders, this position plays a critical role in modernizing platforms, enabling regulatory compliance, accelerating delivery of member and employee capabilities, and solving complex business challenges with material impact across the organization.
Responsibilities - Own end to end solution architecture and systems engineering for Navy Federal Financial Group initiatives from discovery through operational support.
- Translate complex business, regulatory, and operational requirements into target state architectures, logical and physical designs, and actionable technology roadmaps.
- Design, implement, and maintain complex systems and solutions across cloud infrastructure, core platforms, and third party vendor technologies, ensuring seamless interoperability.
- Define and implement resilient, scalable, observable, and high performing integration patterns and APIs across channels, data platforms, core systems, and vendor technologies.
- Lead technical decision making, providing hands on guidance for design, development, configuration, testing, release, and operational readiness.
- Define, enforce, and continuously improve non functional requirements and engineering standards, including security, data governance, scalability, availability, resilience, and disaster recovery.
- Drive compliance by design for regulatory and surveillance needs, including records retention, legal hold, audit trails; support audits, examinations, and evidence requests as needed.
- Conduct complex analysis of business and technical problems; evaluate, recommend, and implement best fit platforms and technologies that deliver secure, cost effective solutions.
- Lead and contribute to root cause analysis for complex incidents; troubleshoot and debug systems issues to restore service and prevent recurrence.
- Monitor and maintain operational systems and infrastructure to ensure reliability, availability, performance, and proactive prevention of incidents and unplanned downtime.
- Guide configuration, integration, and testing of vendor and custom solutions to enhance system performance and meet evolving business needs.
- Drive development and continuous improvement of engineering practices, support processes, procedures, and documentation to strengthen long term system manageability.
- Document system designs, enhancements, configurations, and operational practices in a structured and reusable manner to support knowledge transfer and sustainability.
- Lead medium to large initiatives and programs, balancing delivery timelines, architectural integrity, risk mitigation, and operational stability.
- Partner closely with business stakeholders, subject matter experts, senior management, and cross functional technology teams to resolve complex issues and align solutions to enterprise priorities.
- Lead vendor and partner engagements, including technology evaluation, due diligence, integration planning, and delivery coordination.
- Communicate complex technical concepts clearly and effectively to both technical and non technical audiences, influence decisions across horizontal and vertical platform and product teams.
- Provide technical mentorship and coaching to junior engineers, fostering engineering excellence, accountability, and continuous learning.
- Provide thought leadership on emerging technologies, architectural patterns, and industry best practices; recommend improvements to platforms, products, and processes.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Qualifications - Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education, training, and professional experience.
- 10+ years of progressive experience in systems engineering, software engineering, solution architecture, or related technical leadership roles, preferably within complex or regulated environments such as financial or investment services.
- Demonstrated subject-matter expertise within financial services and/or investment services domains, with a strong understanding of how business, technology, risk, and regulatory disciplines interrelate.
- Advanced proficiency with modern engineering technologies, platforms, programming languages, and system design methodologies.
- Significant hands-on experience designing, engineering, and supporting complex, enterprise-scale systems and distributed architectures.
- Proven ability to translate business and regulatory requirements into clear architecture and design artifacts and to lead design reviews with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Advanced knowledge of software development methodologies, tools, and delivery practices, including experience working within agile and scaled-agile product and engineering teams.
- Significant experience with cloud-based platforms and services, including designing for scalability, reliability, performance, and operational resilience.
- Deep experience with integration patterns and architectures, including APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, and secure data exchange.
- Working knowledge of cybersecurity, risk, and compliance principles, with the ability to partner effectively with security, risk, and audit teams.
- Experience with system monitoring, alerting, and operational health tooling to ensure reliability, availability, and proactive issue detection.
- Advanced knowledge of disaster recovery, business continuity planning, and operational readiness practices.
- Strong analytical, diagnostic, and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to resolve ambiguous, high-impact technical and business problems.
- Advanced interpersonal, communication, and influence skills, with a demonstrated ability to drive alignment across lines of business, delivery teams, and external vendors.
Desired Qualifications - Experience with digital investor and wealth management platforms.
- Experience designing and implementing records-retention and archival compliance solutions.
- Experience supporting BSA/AML and OFAC compliance programs, including data sourcing, alert management, case management, and regulatory reporting.
- Strong data engineering experience, including data lake and data warehousing architectures, data ingestion and transformation, data quality management, and integration with analytics and reporting tools.
- Understanding of core financial, banking, and investment services systems and associated integration constraints within large scale, regulated environments.
- Working knowledge of banking and investment industry standards, as well as familiarity with Navy Federal's functions, operating model, and organizational objectives.
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00AM - 4:30PM
Location: 820 Follin Lane, Vienna, VA 22180 | 5510 Heritage Oaks Drive, Pensacola, FL 32526 | 141 Security Drive, Winchester, VA 22602
About Us Navy Federal provides much more than a job. We provide a meaningful career experience, including a culture that is energized, engaged and committed; and fierce appreciation for our teams, who are rewarded with highly competitive pay and generous benefits and perks.
Our approach to careers is simple yet powerful: Make our mission your passion.
Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 2025
Yello and WayUp Top 100 Internship Programs
Computerworld Best Places to Work in IT
Newsweek Most Loved Workplaces
2025 PEOPLE Companies That Care
Newsweek Most Trustworthy Companies in America
Military Times 2025 Best for Vets Employers
Best Companies for Latinos to Work for 2025
Forbes 2025 America's Best Large Employers
Forbes 2025 America's Best Employers for New Grads
Forbes 2025 America's Best Employers for Tech Workers
2025 RippleMatch Campus Forward Award Winner for Overall Excellence
Military.com Top Military Spouse Employers 2025
2025 Handshake Early Talent Award
From Fortune . 2025 Fortune Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license. Fortune and Fortune Media IP Limited are not affiliated with, and do not endorse products or services of, Navy Federal Credit Union.
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, sex, color, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity or any other basis protected by applicable law.
Accommodations: If you need accommodation or assistance for a qualifying condition to complete the online application (or during any stage of the hiring process), you can contact Navy Federal's Medical Accommodations team at or by calling 1-. This team cannot provide any information on job postings or application status.
Disclaimers: Navy Federal reserves the right to fill this role at a higher/lower grade level based on business need. An assessment may be required to compete for this position. Job postings are subject to close early or extend out longer than the anticipated closing date at the hiring team's discretion based on qualified applicant volume. Navy Federal Credit Union assesses market data to establish salary ranges that enable us to remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range, based on your experience, location and market position. For additional details regarding compensation and benefits, review the Benefits page of the Navy Federal Career Site.
Protect Yourself from Job Scams: Navy Federal Credit Union jobs are posted on our career site, jobs.navyfederal.org and reputable job boards (e.g., LinkedIn, Indeed). We do not post jobs on social media marketplaces, messaging apps or unverified websites. We will never ask candidates for payment, bank details or personal financial information during the hiring process.
Bank Secrecy Act: Remains cognizant of and adheres to Navy Federal policies and procedures, and regulations pertaining to the Bank Secrecy Act.
Never miss an opportunity! Create an alert based on the job you applied for.