Research Platform Architect

CompanyFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is seeking a Research Platform Architect to lead the technical vision and long-term architecture of its global economic research platforms such as FRED and FRASER. These platforms provide access to hundreds of thousands of economic time-series datasets, historical archives, and research publications used by millions of economists, policymakers, researchers, students, and developers worldwide.

This role will define strategic direction of technologies for the Research platform and ensure standards, processes and target state architectures and guide the organization. This role will leverage in-depth knowledge of current technology, industry standards and frameworks, security best practices and emerging technologies to accelerate business value, delivery and outcomes.

As Research Platform Architect, you will shape the future architecture of this ecosystem – ensuring the platforms remain scalable, reliable, and innovative as global demand for economic data continues to grow. This is a rare opportunity to architect platforms that power global economic insight and public data access at massive scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the long-term architectural strategy for the economic research platform ecosystem.
• Align architecture with evolving research needs, data growth, and public data access.
• Provide technical leadership across the Research Domain Architect, and Application Architect roles.
• Establish architecture principles, design standards, and governance practices across engineering teams.
• Lead architecture reviews for major technology initiatives.
• Lead architecture for high-availability public APIs and data services used globally by developers and institutions.
• Collaborate with data architecture to support large-scale time-series datasets and historical revisions.

• Design systems capable of handling traffic spikes during major economic events and releases.
• Partner with engineering leaders, and product teams to translate research needs into scalable platform architecture.
• Mentor engineers on modern platform architecture practices.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in enterprise / platform architecture, solution design and large-scale technology implementations in complex, highly regulated environments. Deep understanding of modern technology stacks, cloud platforms (AWS preferred), and enterprise software solutions.
• Demonstrated experience designing, architecting and supporting external / public-facing applications with a strong emphasis on scalability, security, availability and performance for external customer-facing platforms. Demonstrated knowledge of and leading adoption of industry best practices in the areas of application development, solution architecture, agile methodologies, cloud development, cybersecurity and cloud data architecture. Industry-related certifications in one or more of the above areas are desired.
• Outstanding communication and collaboration skills, including translating technical topics and risks into business teams. Ability to personalize communication to audience from technologists to executive leadership.
• Extensive, in-depth experience implementing highly complex technology projects in a cross-functional matrix environment with demonstrated ability to drive consensus and deliver results. Examples of leading through influence and successfully resolving conflicting priorities are required.
• Deep alignment into the Research business domain which is required to translate business strategy into technical strategy, architecture, value streams and operational needs into a scalable platform that accelerates delivery, maximizes ROI and ensures long-term relevance of solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to define long-term architecture roadmaps and lead complex modernization initiatives.
• Strong experience with API-driven systems and high-traffic public platforms.
• Minimum 5 years of experience designing and operating systems on AWS or similar cloud platforms such as Azure.
• Experience working with modern technology stacks including PHP, Go, Angular, Terraform and PostgreSQL.
• Candidates with less experience may be considered at a lower job grade or salary. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience architecting large public data platforms or analytics platforms.
• Experience with time-series data systems or analytical datasets.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems toward service-oriented or modular architectures.
• Experience designing developer ecosystems and public API platforms.
• Familiarity with distributed data processing systems and data pipelines.

Total Rewards

Bring your passion and expertise, and we'll provide the opportunities that will challenge you and propel your growth—along with a wide range of benefits and perks that support your health, wealth, and life.

Salary: $140-170k

In addition to competitive compensation, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that all brought together in a flexible work environment where you can truly find balance:

• Generous paid time off
• Tuition & Training assistance/reimbursement
• 401(k) match & Annuity/Pension fund
• Top-notch health care benefits
• Child and family care leave
• Professional development opportunities
• And more...

At the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, we are committed to a strong and resilient economy for all. We prioritize inclusion and strive to be a workplace where all employees can thrive. Learn more about Bank’s culture

The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Full Time / Part TimeFull time

Regular / TemporaryRegular

Job Exempt (Yes / No)Yes

Job CategoryInformation Technology Family Group

Work ShiftFirst (United States of America)

The Federal Reserve Banks are committed to equal employment opportunity for employees and job applicants in compliance with applicable law and to an environment where employees are valued for their differences.

Always verify and apply to jobs on Federal Reserve System Careers (https://rb.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/FRS) or through verified Federal Reserve Bank social media channels.

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