Description:
Role Summary
The Principal Engineer – Technical Expert (Application Platforms) is a senior individual contributor role that acts as the deep technical authority within the Securities Services domain.
Works in close partnership with Domain Architects, Application Owners, IT Operations, Risk, and Compliance teams to:
• provide expert technical judgement at the application level,
• introduce innovation and modern engineering practices, and
• embed AI driven improvements across the SDLC to materially enhance speed, quality, and resilience.
The incumbent intervenes directly in complex engineering topics, influences outcomes through technical credibility, and helps elevate overall engineering maturity across the domain.
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Role Positioning & Interfaces
This role:
• Does provide application level technical leadership and innovation
• Does not own enterprise wide architecture standards (handled by Architects)
• Does not run day to day IT operations (handled by Operations teams)
Key interfaces include:
• Application Owners – primary delivery and prioritization counterparts
• Domain / Application Architects – enterprise architecture and design alignment
• IT Operations – stability, incidents, releases, and observability
• Risk & Compliance – secure by design, regulatory, audit readiness
• Vendors – technical quality, engineering standards, delivery assurance
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Key Responsibilities
1. Deep Technical Expertise & Advisory
• Act as the application level subject matter expert across assigned platforms.
• Provide authoritative guidance on application architecture, design patterns, performance, security, resilience, and scalability.
• Perform hands on design reviews, code reviews, root cause analysis, and complex troubleshooting where deep expertise is required.
2. Partnership with Application Owners & Architects
• Work closely with Application Owners to strengthen technical decisions, estimates, and delivery outcomes.
• Collaborate with Architects to ensure solutions align with enterprise architecture and target state direction.
• Translate architectural intent into practical, implementable application designs.
3. SDLC Improvement & Engineering Excellence
• Actively identify bottlenecks, quality gaps, and inefficiencies across the SDLC.
• Embed modern engineering practices covering design quality, testability, automation, and release readiness.
• Support SIT/UAT through defect analysis, prevention strategies, and design corrections.
4. AI Enabled SDLC Transformation
• Accelerate SDLC, improve quality, and reduce rework.
• Accelerate technical analysis and documentation.
• Improve code quality and first time right delivery.
• Strengthen testing depth and coverage.
• Reduce cycle time across build, test, and release phases.
• Embeds AI responsibly within regulated, audit ready engineering practices
5. Migration, Modernization & Decommissioning Enablement
• Provide technical expertise for legacy modernization, cloud or platform migrations, COTS transitions, and application decommissioning.
• Use structured analysis (including AI based insights) to identify dependencies, risks, and migration complexity.
• Support cutover planning, stabilization, and post migration optimization.
6. Run the Bank & Stability Support
• Support IT Operations during major production incidents with deep technical diagnostics.
• Identify recurring failure patterns and recommend engineering led preventive fixes.
• Influence improvements in observability, resilience, and recoverability (without owning operations).
7. Innovation & Continuous Improvement
• Actively bring new ideas, tools, and techniques into the domain.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and AI use cases for practical adoption.
• Drive a culture of engineering craftsmanship, learning, and forward thinking design.
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Decision Authority
• Acts as the domain technical expert influencing application level design, quality, and risk decisions.
• Recommends technical approaches, standards application, and remediation actions.
• Escalates material architectural, security, or regulatory risks to Application Architecture, Risk, or Technology Leadership as appropriate.
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Experience & Background
• 10+ years of hands on engineering experience within Banking, Financial Services, or large scale enterprise technology environments.
• Proven credibility as a go to technical expert handling complex systems, migrations, and production grade platforms.
• Demonstrated experience driving engineering innovation and SDLC improvements, including AI assisted practices.
• Experience operating in vendor led or hybrid delivery models.
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Skills & Knowledge
• Strong expertise in application architecture, integration patterns, distributed systems, and data flows.
• Advanced troubleshooting and problem solving skills across complex environments.
• Practical experience embedding AI, automation, and modern SDLC practices into real delivery contexts.
• Solid understanding of security, risk, and compliance considerations in regulated environments.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence without formal authority.
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Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree in Technology, Engineering, Finance, Banking, or related discipline.
• Relevant technical, cloud, or architecture certifications are an advantage.
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Success Metrics (Indicative)
• Reduction in SDLC cycle time and rework
• Improvement in first time right quality and test effectiveness
• Measurable adoption of AI assisted SDLC practices
• Reduction in recurring production issues through preventive engineering
• Positive feedback from Application Owners, Architects, and Operations teams
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