Principal Engineer Financial Crime — AI & Modernization at Wells Fargo
CHARLOTTE, NC
$159,000–$305,000from the description
Jul 24, 2026
CHARLOTTE, NC
Jul 26, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor engineering role focused on architecting and modernizing large-scale financial crime platforms — covering areas such as anti-money laundering, fraud detection, and transaction monitoring. The work centers on designing cloud-native, AI-driven systems including agentic workflows, LLM-based tooling, and real-time decisioning engines, while also mentoring engineering teams and engaging with executive stakeholders. Suits a hands-on principal-level engineer with deep distributed systems and applied AI experience.
Principal level · 7+ years · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
Why we read it this way (8)
The job title is 'Technical Principal Engineer' and the posting explicitly frames this as 'one of the highest levels of technical authority within the engineering organization,' with org-wide architectural scope across multiple Financial Crime platforms — this genuinely supports Principal seniority, not merely Senior.
The role is classified as 15-1252 (Software Developers) rather than 11-3021 (Computer and Information Systems Managers) because the JD emphasizes hands-on technical work: writing and reviewing production code, prototyping, architecture design, and technical mentorship — not people management, hiring, or budget ownership. However, the org-wide strategic scope and executive-facing responsibilities make 11-3021 a credible runner-up.
Work location is not explicitly stated in the posting beyond 'hybrid work schedule.' Wells Fargo's principal engineering roles of this type are typically based at major hub locations (e.g., Charlotte, NC; New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; Dallas, TX); no specific city was identified, so the CBSA is left blank.
All AI/GenAI/agentic skills (LLMs, RAG, vector databases, agentic AI, GenAI) appear under 'Desired Qualifications,' so they are marked preferred despite the prominent role they play in the job description narrative.
The required qualifications gate on years of experience and broad capability areas (engineering, large-scale architecture, cloud-native delivery, executive communication) rather than specific named technologies, so very few skills can be marked as hard gates. The skills list reflects this accurately.
The '7+ years architecting and designing large-scale solutions' and '5+ years cloud-native' requirements are role-level experience gates captured in the overall years minimum (7, the highest stated minimum) and on the relevant skills' the years demanded fields respectively.
Relocation assistance is not available; the role is hybrid (not fully remote).
Ignored 3 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): large-scale distributed systems architecture, API design, AI/ML model operationalization.
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