Kafka Remote Jobs in Arizona (NOW HIRING)

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

As a dedicated Payments Solution Engineer lead, you will be responsible for architecting, integrating, and modernizing enterprise payment platforms supporting insurance, treasury, procurement, and financial operations. This role owns the end-to-end payment lifecycle, including claims disbursements, premium collections, billing payments, treasury cash movements, vendor payments, settlement, reconciliation, exception management, and regulatory reporting.

The ideal candidate combines deep payments expertise with strong solution architecture and engineering skills to deliver secure, scalable, resilient, and compliant payment solutions within a highly regulated financial services environment.

We offer a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Colorado Springs, CO, Charlotte, NC, or Tampa, FL. Relocation assistance is available for this position.

What you'll do:

• Payment Modernization & Architecture
• Lead solution architecture for enterprise payment capabilities across insurance, treasury, billing, and procurement domains.
• Design end-to-end payment processes, including initiation, approval, routing, execution, settlement, reconciliation, and reporting.
• Define future-state payment architectures that improve automation, resiliency, operational efficiency, and straight-through processing.
• Evaluate and recommend payment hubs, orchestration platforms, treasury solutions, and banking integration strategies.
• Platform Engineering & Delivery
• Configure and support SAP payment and treasury platforms, including SAP FS-CD/FI-CA, Advanced Payment Management (APM), and Treasury & Risk Management (TRM).
• Design high-volume payment processing, collections, cash application, settlement, and exception management solutions.
• Develop APIs, integrations, reporting solutions, and SAP enhancements supporting payment operations.
• Lead solution design workshops, testing, implementation activities, and production support for critical payment services.
• Bank & Payment Network Integration
• Design and manage integrations with banks, payment processors, clearinghouses, and payment networks, including ACH, Wire, SWIFT, RTP, and FedNow.
• Implement payment file transmission, real-time payment processing, bank statement ingestion, and automated reconciliation capabilities.
• Support API-driven and event-based architectures leveraging Kafka, middleware, and cloud-native integration services.
• Agile / SAFe Delivery & Execution
• Partner with Product Management, Product Owners, Solution Architects, and Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to define and deliver payment modernization initiatives.
• Decompose large payment modernization initiatives into Epics and features, capabilities, enablers, and technical stories that can be executed across multiple Agile teams.
• Provide architecture guidance and technical leadership to development teams throughout the Agile delivery lifecycle.
• Identify and manage technical dependencies, risks, and architectural constraints across multiple teams, vendors, and platforms.
• Drive alignment between business objectives, solution architecture, and execution plans to ensure successful delivery of payment capabilities.
• Support estimation, release planning, capacity planning, and roadmap development for payment-related initiatives.
• Participate in architecture runway planning and technical enablement activities to support future business capabilities and platform modernization.
• Ensure solution designs adhere to enterprise architecture standards, security requirements, resiliency objectives, and operational support expectations.
• Track delivery outcomes and continuously improve delivery efficiency, quality, reliability, and time-to-market
• Facilitate cross-team coordination and architectural decision-making across business, engineering, infrastructure, and vendor teams.
• Contribute to Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) discussions by providing technical assessments, sequencing recommendations, and modernization roadmaps.
• Partner with Release Train Engineers (RTEs), Product Managers, and Delivery Managers to remove impediments and accelerate delivery.
• Drive adoption of DevSecOps, CI/CD, test automation, observability, and operational readiness practices across payment platforms.
• Ensure non-functional requirements including resiliency, scalability, recoverability, compliance, and performance are incorporated into feature development and release planning.
• Governance & Operational Excellence
• Ensure compliance with PCI-DSS, SOX, NACHA, security, audit, and regulatory requirements.
• Establish architecture standards, development practices, support models, and resiliency frameworks.
• Drive operational readiness, disaster recovery, and service reliability for mission-critical payment platforms.

What you have:

• Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• 8+ years of experience designing and implementing enterprise payment solutions.
• Deep knowledge of payment operations, treasury processes, receivables, disbursements, settlement, and reconciliation.
• Experience with payment rails including ACH, Wire, SWIFT, RTP, FedNow, and Check processing.
• Hands-on experience with SAP FS-CD/FI-CA, APM, TRM, or comparable enterprise payment platforms.
• Expertise in financial institution integrations, payment processors, clearinghouses, and reconciliation solutions.
• Experience designing API-first and event-driven architectures using Kafka and cloud technologies.
• BTP, ABAP development and SAP enhancement experience.
• Knowledge of financial controls, payment security, audit, and regulatory compliance.
• Experience integrating payment solutions using Stripe APIs and related services.
• Hands-on experience with Stripe payment processing, subscription management, marketplace capabilities, and payment workflow design.
• Familiarity with Stripe SDKs, developer tools, implementation best practices, and security features.

What sets you apart:

• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for business and executive stakeholders.
• Proven leadership in solution architecture and enterprise technology strategy.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and collaboration skills.
• Experience operating in mission-critical, highly regulated financial services environments.
• Expertise with Stripe webhooks, dispute management, reporting, and payment optimization.
• Knowledge of emerging payment technologies, industry regulations, SAP innovations, and modern payment ecosystems.

Compensation range: The salary range for this position is: $127,310.00 - $243,340.00.

USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Please do not apply for this role if at any time (now or in the future) you will need immigration support (i.e., H-1B, TN, STEM OPT Training Plans, etc.).

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position. The actual salary for this role may vary by location.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.