API Technical Lead, VP

State Street•Burlington, MA

About The Position

We are looking for an experienced API Technical Lead with more than 10 years of experience to own the design, governance, and delivery of enterprise APIs that power internal platforms, client integrations, and partner ecosystems. This role combines hands‑on technical leadership with architecture, standards, and cross‑team influence to ensure APIs are scalable, secure, and developer‑friendly. Across the globe, institutional investors rely on us to help them manage risk, respond to challenges, and drive performance and profitability. We keep our clients at the heart of everything we do, and smart, engaged employees are essential to our continued success. We are committed to fostering an environment where every employee feels valued and empowered to reach their full potential. As an essential partner in our shared success, you’ll benefit from inclusive development opportunities, flexible work-life support, paid volunteer days, and vibrant employee networks that keep you connected to what matters most. Join us in shaping the future.

Requirements

More than 10 years of experience
Strong experience designing and delivering enterprise APIs
Expertise in REST APIs
Proficiency in Java, C#, or similar backend technologies
Strong experience with API gateways and service mesh concepts
Deep understanding of distributed systems and microservices
Experience with Kubernetes, containers, and cloud platforms
CI/CD automation and Git‑based workflows
Observability tools (metrics, tracing, logging)
Familiarity with API testing, mocking, and contract validation
OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, RBAC, secrets management
Rate limiting, abuse prevention, and data protection
Audit logging and compliance‑ready API design

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting external client or partner APIs
Knowledge of financial services or regulated environments
Exposure to API monetization, throttling tiers, or usage analytics
Experience driving API platform or integration strategy
Experience with gRPC and event‑driven APIs a plus

Responsibilities

Own the API strategy and architecture (REST/gRPC/event‑driven as appropriate)
Define and enforce API standards (naming, versioning, error handling, pagination)
Design APIs for scalability, performance, and backward compatibility
Drive API‑first and contract‑driven development (OpenAPI/Swagger, schemas)
Lead API lifecycle management: design → build → version → deprecate
Provide hands‑on technical leadership for API development teams
Review designs and code to ensure quality, consistency, and best practices
Lead complex API initiatives and cross‑service integrations
Mentor engineers and raise the overall API engineering bar
Act as the primary technical escalation point for API‑related issues
Ensure APIs meet enterprise security standards (authN/authZ, rate limiting, input validation)
Integrate APIs with OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, mTLS, and centralized auth services
Define and implement API governance, approvals, and change management
Ensure observability: logging, metrics, tracing, and SLAs
Drive resiliency: throttling, circuit breakers, retries, and graceful degradation
Build and maintain API gateways, developer portals, and shared libraries/SDKs
Enable self‑service onboarding for internal and external consumers
Partner with product, security, SRE, and platform teams
Support internal, client, and partner integrations at scale
Integrate APIs with CI/CD pipelines and automated testing
Ensure production readiness, on‑call support, and incident response
Drive API modernization and legacy integration cleanup
Track adoption, performance, and reliability metrics

Benefits

retirement savings plan (401K) with company match
insurance coverage including basic life, medical, dental, vision, long-term disability, and other optional additional coverages
paid-time off including vacation, sick leave, short term disability, and family care responsibilities
access to our Employee Assistance Program
incentive compensation including eligibility for annual performance-based awards (excluding certain sales roles subject to sales incentive plans)
eligibility for certain tax advantaged savings plans
inclusive development opportunities
flexible work-life support
paid volunteer days
vibrant employee networks