Application Engineering Technical Lead - II

Vanguard•Malvern, PA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

Vanguard is seeking an Application Engineering Technical Lead - II to own and evolve the platform that orchestrates security scanning across applicable applications. This role involves leading the design, development, and implementation of cloud-native platform services on AWS, developing APIs, event-driven integrations, automation services, and CI/CD capabilities. The lead will maintain the reliability of the orchestration platform, partner with security and engineering teams to embed secure development practices, and provide technical leadership and mentoring. Additionally, the role involves championing the adoption of AI-assisted development, collaborating with stakeholders on technical direction, managing risks, and driving continuous improvement in architecture and operational excellence.

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering, application development, or platform engineering experience, including at least three years of hands-on development.
Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience.
Strong expertise with AWS cloud technologies and cloud-native architectures.
Strong object-oriented programming fundamentals (Java) and the ability to work effectively in more than one language.
Experience designing APIs, automation solutions, CI/CD pipelines, and distributed systems.
Experience operating and supporting production platform services, including observability and reliability practices.
Proven ability to lead technical initiatives, build trust and influence across organizational boundaries, and mentor engineers.
Practical perspective on AI-assisted development, including where it adds value and where it does not.
Willingness to learn new technologies.

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree preferred.
Experience with Node.js and TypeScript is a plus, and is what we use today.
Prior experience applying AI to engineering or product work is a plus; a genuine interest in doing so is expected.
Platform engineering, DevOps, or CI/CD pipeline engineering, building services and pipelines that application and product teams across the organization depend on.
Large-scale cloud migration or modernization work in an enterprise environment.
Building automation solutions at enterprise scale, where adoption spans many teams.
AWS certifications, such as Solutions Architect (Associate or Professional), DevOps Engineer Professional, or AI Practitioner.
Understanding of application security, DevSecOps, or secure software development practices.

Responsibilities

Own and evolve the platform that orchestrates security scanning across applicable applications, surfaces findings as control checks, and enforces security standards through GitHub's policy engine.
Lead the design, development, and implementation of cloud-native platform services on AWS, using services including IAM, ECS, Lambda, Step Functions, RDS, S3, and CloudFormation.
Develop APIs, event-driven integrations, automation services, and CI/CD capabilities that make security testing reliable at scale and easy for developers to adopt.
Maintain the reliability of the orchestration platform as adoption grows, using automation, observability, and self-service so support does not scale with usage.
Partner with security and engineering teams to embed secure development practices into the development lifecycle across a growing set of scanning capabilities as the threat landscape evolves, including SAST, SCA, container, and API security testing.
Provide technical leadership and mentoring to the team, promoting high-quality software engineering practices.
Champion thoughtful adoption of AI-assisted development across the team, coaching engineers on where it fits our products and delivery model and where it does not.
Collaborate with stakeholders to define technical direction, manage risks, and ensure successful delivery of business-critical solutions.
Partner with leaders across DevSecOps to stay aligned to senior leadership strategic initiatives, adjusting team priorities and deliverables as direction evolves.
Drive continuous improvement in architecture, engineering standards, and operational excellence.