Principal Architect - AI Platform & Solutions

When you join MetLife’s Global Technology team, you’ll be part of a forward-thinking group dedicated to shaping the future of digital solutions for customers worldwide. You’ll develop, maintain and support technology applications and delivery, leveraging AI, automation, and contemporary ways of working to enhance experiences and drive business outcomes. Your work will simplify complex processes, improve tech resiliency, and ensure high-performing, seamless solutions that power life’s most important moments. In this dynamic environment, you’ll collaborate with talented peers across teams and functions, expanding your skills in impactful ways. Ready to push boundaries and set new industry standards? Join us and help drive the future of technology forward.

The Opportunity

Enterprise Architecture ensures a holistic strategy and approach to technology solutions by working broadly and globally across the company. We drive MetLife toward a simplified and consistent architecture, enabling quality, agility, and cost-effectiveness. We support all areas of MetLife in developing and implementing enterprise strategies across Business Units, Global Operations, Application Development, Information Security, Data & Analytics, and Infrastructure.

MetLife is seeking a Principal Architect to lead the design and evolution of AI-powered development platforms and agentic solutions across the enterprise. This role focuses on establishing architectural vision, platform architectures, and solution architectures for AI and automation systems that empower engineering and platform teams while ensuring alignment with MetLife's architecture standards and guardrails.

The architect will design and evolve enterprise-scale platforms, guardrails, and reusable patterns that enable Platform and Solution Engineering teams to rapidly build and deploy AI, agentic, and automation solutions without creating hidden risk, technical debt, or compliance issues. The role combines strategic vision with hands-on expertise, ensuring AI capabilities can scale safely and effectively across the organization while driving continuous innovation and adoption.

You will provide thought leadership and drive strategic initiatives across architecture, security, privacy, and platform teams to define how AI and agent-based capabilities are delivered and operationalized enterprise-wide. This role requires both the ability to set architectural direction and the technical depth to engage hands-on with complex AI and automation challenges.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish and communicate the architectural vision and strategic direction for AI platforms, agentic solutions, and enterprise automation across MetLife
• Design, evolve, and maintain enterprise reference architectures and patterns for AI-enabled development, agent frameworks, modern AI ecosystems, and secure integration patterns
• Lead the definition of governance-by-design capabilities, including embedded controls for security, compliance, explainability, transparency, and responsible AI practices
• Conduct deep technical research and hands-on experimentation with emerging AI technologies, agent frameworks, automation techniques, and agentic patterns to inform enterprise architecture decisions
• Partner strategically with Platform Engineering, Solution Engineering, Security, Privacy, and Architecture teams to validate architectural decisions and drive enterprise-wide adoption of AI capabilities
• Design and establish reusable frameworks, templates, components, and accelerators that enable rapid development of AI and agentic solutions while reducing complexity and technical debt
• Influence and guide significant technical decisions and architectural changes across Platform and Solution Engineering teams
• Represent Enterprise Architecture in strategic forums and working groups focused on AI platform evolution, governance, and responsible AI practices

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering discipline or equivalent professional experience
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, platform architecture, or enterprise architecture, with significant focus on modern AI systems and agentic solutions
• Deep hands-on expertise with modern AI concepts, including agentic AI frameworks, LLM integration patterns, MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, and creation of AI agents, plugins, and skills
• Proven expertise in designing and deploying cloud-native architectures, secure integration patterns, API governance, and enterprise-scale systems
• Demonstrated expertise in security, operational resilience, governance, and responsible AI architecture principles
• Hands-on technical experience with AI platforms such as Claude AI, Github Copilot, or comparable modern AI ecosystems, including the ability to evaluate and compare platforms
• Proven track record leading complex architectural initiatives requiring strategic engagement across multiple organizations and stakeholder groups
• Demonstrated thought leadership, influencing ability, and capability to establish architectural direction and drive organizational alignment on technical vision
• Excellent strategic communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for executive and business audiences

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading or architecting platform initiatives at enterprise scale, particularly in financial services
• Deep knowledge of responsible AI concepts such as explainability, auditability, bias detection, and ethical AI principles
• Expertise with cloud PaaS technologies, containerization (Kubernetes), advanced API/MCP architecture and security protocols, advanced analytics, with preferred experience in Azure environments
• Experience mentoring and developing architects and technical leaders
• Track record of driving organizational adoption of emerging technologies and architecting solutions for large-scale transformation initiatives

Location Expectation: This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office.

The expected salary range for this position is $140,000 - $190,000. This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation and stock-based long-term incentives. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms.

Benefits We Offer

Our U.S. benefits address holistic well-being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no-cost short- and long-term disability. We also provide company-paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more! For more information regarding MetLife’s U.S. benefits, please click here.

About MetLife

Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World’s 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world’s leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

As part of our New Frontier strategy, MetLife is building an AI-enabled, people-centered future. We’re looking for people who bring curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset as we use AI to enhance how we serve customers, support communities, and evolve the way work gets done. At MetLife, AI is a responsible partner that supports human judgment, creativity, and continuous improvement while helping us build trust, inclusion, and long-term value.

Our purpose is simple - to help our colleagues, customers, communities, and the world at large create a more confident future. United by purpose and guided by our core values - Win Together, Do the Right Thing, Deliver Impact Over Activity, and Think Ahead - we’re inspired to transform the next century in financial services. At MetLife, it’s #AllTogetherPossible. Join us!

MetLife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are made without regards to race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, genetic information, citizenship status (although applicants and employees must be legally authorized to work in the United States), uniformed service member or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law (“protected characteristics”).

If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at [email protected]. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process.

MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liabilities.

This posting is for a current vacancy and is anticipated to remain open for at least 90 days from the listed posting date.