Head of Application Engineering

Janus Henderson•Denver, CO

24d•Hybrid

About The Position

Application Engineering is the backbone of how Janus Henderson builds, delivers, and evolves the technology platforms that power investment management, client servicing, and global distribution. As Head of Application Engineering, you will set the strategic direction for the firm's application development function, leading a high-performing engineering organisation that designs, builds, and operates mission-critical systems at enterprise scale. A central focus of the role is driving the modernisation of the firm's application landscape — accelerating cloud-native adoption, embedding AI and machine learning capabilities into core platforms, and establishing the engineering practices that enable teams to ship high-quality software rapidly and reliably. You will be accountable for the technical health of the application estate, from architecture and code quality through to production resilience and operational excellence. Alongside the modernisation agenda, you will partner closely with Product Management, Infrastructure, Data Engineering, and business stakeholders across Investments, Distribution, and Operations to ensure that engineering efforts are tightly aligned to commercial outcomes. You will be the senior technical voice that translates business ambition into engineering strategy and execution. Your goal is to build a world-class application engineering function that delivers scalable, secure, and innovative technology solutions. Your aim is to be a trusted technology leader who earns credibility through execution, cultivates engineering talent, and drives measurable business impact through technology excellence.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 5+ years in senior engineering leadership roles, ideally within financial services, asset management, or fintech.
Demonstrated success leading application engineering organisations of 30+ engineers across multiple teams and geographies.
Deep hands-on expertise in modern software engineering — cloud-native development (Azure/AWS), microservices, containerisation (Kubernetes, Docker), CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code.
Proven track record of delivering large-scale platform modernisation programmes, migrating legacy systems to cloud-native architectures while maintaining business continuity.
Strong understanding of financial services technology — including investment management platforms, order management systems, portfolio accounting, client reporting, and distribution technology.
Experience embedding AI/ML capabilities into production applications, including practical knowledge of LLMs, generative AI, and intelligent automation.
Excellence in engineering management — building high-performing teams, establishing engineering career frameworks, and creating cultures of ownership and continuous improvement.
Deep knowledge of software architecture patterns — domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, API design, and distributed systems.
Strong understanding of security-first development practices, including OWASP standards, identity and access management, data encryption, and regulatory compliance (SOX, GDPR, SEC).
Proven ability to manage engineering budgets, vendor relationships, and build-vs-buy decisions at the enterprise level.
Excellent executive communication skills, with experience presenting technology strategy and trade-offs to C-suite and board-level stakeholders.
Experience operating in Agile and DevOps environments, with a strong understanding of Lean engineering principles and continuous delivery practices.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
Proficiency with engineering management tooling — Jira, Confluence, GitHub/GitLab, and modern observability platforms (Datadog, Splunk, or equivalent).

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or an MBA with a technology focus. Equivalent industry experience will also be considered.
Experience in asset management or wealth management technology, with knowledge of investment operations, trading systems, and regulatory reporting platforms.
Hands-on experience with platform engineering — building internal developer platforms, self-service infrastructure, and golden-path tooling.
Familiarity with responsible AI governance, model risk management, and the regulatory landscape for AI in financial services.
Experience leading engineering organisations through large-scale M&A technology integrations.
AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, or Kubernetes (CKA/CKAD) certification.

Responsibilities

Define and own the multi-year engineering strategy for the firm's application portfolio, ensuring alignment with enterprise technology and business priorities.
Establish and evolve the target architecture for application platforms, driving the transition from legacy systems to cloud-native, microservices-based, and event-driven architectures.
Set the bar for engineering excellence — defining standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, observability, and production readiness across all application teams.
Articulate a clear technology roadmap that balances innovation (AI/ML integration, automation, modern tooling) with operational stability and risk management.
Lead end-to-end delivery of the firm's application modernisation programme, from assessment and architecture through build, migration, testing, and production cutover.
Drive the adoption of cloud-native services (Azure/AWS), containerisation (Kubernetes, Docker), and infrastructure-as-code across the application estate.
Oversee the design and implementation of API-first integration patterns, enabling seamless connectivity between internal platforms, third-party systems, and client-facing applications.
Partner with Data Engineering and Data Science teams to embed AI and machine learning capabilities into core applications — including intelligent automation, natural language processing, and predictive analytics features.
Establish and enforce secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices, including threat modelling, static and dynamic analysis, dependency scanning, and secure deployment pipelines.
Ensure production systems meet stringent SLA targets for availability, latency, and throughput, implementing robust incident management, on-call processes, and blameless post-incident review practices.
Lead the evaluation, selection, and integration of third-party software and SaaS platforms, ensuring they meet architectural, security, and operational standards.
Implement comprehensive observability across the application stack — distributed tracing, structured logging, real-time alerting, and performance dashboards — to enable proactive issue detection and rapid resolution.
Drive engineering productivity through investment in developer experience: standardised local development environments, self-service tooling, automated testing frameworks, and fast feedback CI/CD pipelines.
Sequence platform modernisation across workstreams, balancing risk and business continuity — for example, starting with lower-risk internal tools, then progressing to client-facing and investment-critical systems.
Plan, prioritise, and maintain a rolling engineering roadmap that balances strategic modernisation, feature delivery for business stakeholders, technical debt reduction, and operational improvements.
Make data-driven trade-off decisions on build vs. buy, technology selection, and resource allocation, developing business cases for senior leadership.
Partner with Product Management to translate business priorities into well-scoped engineering deliverables with clear milestones, dependencies, and success criteria.
Ensure non-functional requirements — scalability, security, disaster recovery, regulatory compliance, and performance — are addressed from the outset of every initiative.
Establish and report on engineering metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, mean time to recovery) to drive continuous improvement.
Serve as the senior engineering partner to business leadership across Investments, Distribution, Operations, Risk, and Compliance, ensuring technology delivery is aligned with commercial objectives.
Communicate engineering progress, risks, technical debt, and strategic trade-offs clearly to the CTO, executive leadership, and board-level stakeholders.
Translate complex engineering, architectural, and AI concepts into business language, enabling informed decision-making at all levels.
Act as the bridge between engineering teams and the broader technology organisation, fostering collaboration with Infrastructure, Security, Data, and Enterprise Architecture functions.
Maintain deep hands-on fluency in modern software engineering — cloud platforms, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, AI/ML integration, and DevOps/SRE practices — to credibly guide technical direction.
Champion engineering best practices including domain-driven design, twelve-factor app methodology, test-driven development, and continuous delivery.
Lead the firm's evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies — including generative AI, LLM-powered developer tools, low-code/no-code platforms, and next-generation observability solutions.
Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Security, and Infrastructure teams to ensure application platforms adhere to firmwide standards and regulatory requirements.
Establish communities of practice, tech talks, and inner-source initiatives that promote knowledge sharing and engineering culture across the organisation.
Lead, manage, and develop a multi-team engineering organisation comprising application engineers, tech leads, architects, DevOps engineers, and QA engineers across multiple locations.
Recruit, retain, and grow top engineering talent, establishing career frameworks, mentorship programmes, and a strong engineering identity that attracts high performers.
Foster a culture of ownership, psychological safety, continuous learning, and engineering craftsmanship, where teams are empowered to innovate and held accountable for outcomes.
Own workforce planning for the application engineering function — determining team structures, headcount, skill mix, and vendor/contractor strategy to meet delivery commitments.
Partner with Finance, HR, and Programme Management to develop and manage the engineering budget, ensuring efficient allocation of resources across strategic and BAU workstreams.
Own production stability for the application estate, establishing escalation processes, on-call rotations, and SLA governance frameworks.
Drive continuous improvement in incident response, change management, and release management processes, reducing mean time to resolution and change failure rates.
Carry out other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
Generous Holiday policies
Excellent Health and Wellbeing benefits including corporate membership to Wellhub
Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
Unique employee events and programs including a 14er challenge
Complimentary beverages, snacks and all employee Happy Hours
Annual Bonus Opportunity
competitive compensation
pension/retirement plans
various health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits