Principal Engineer I

Western Alliance Bank•Phoenix, AZ

5d•Onsite

About The Position

As a Principal Engineer I, within the Enterprise Application Services (EAS) department, you'll serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in multiple functional areas/domains on system processes and data structures that support multiple technology disciplines. In this role you'll support the Common Services teams and deliver complex projects in designated domain(s) or functional area(s) to maintain the security posture on time and on budget. This role is technically responsible for oversight of ~10 key applications including BMC Control M job scheduler, File Exchange/Account Extract, Cleo Harmony SFTP, Babel Messaging-Email Services, Twilio-SendGrid platform, ELK Application Logging and Reporting Platform, and Event Management. This is a key role which helps the bank deliver about 50% of total production customer reconciliation, statements, and reporting in a high-pressure environment. You'll partner closely with business stakeholders and product owners, including partners across business segments to understand evolving business needs and translate them into technical solutions. A core expectation is to develop deep expertise in each platform's product capabilities and to design, build, and deliver solutions and enhancements to existing products and services in Common Services portfolio. Through this engagement, you'll help ensure that platform roadmaps, enhancements, and day-to-day delivery remain tightly aligned with stakeholder priorities and the bank's operational and compliance objectives. As a Principal Engineer I you'll provide SME expertise in your respective domain as well as adjacent domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant, and reliable. You'll identify development and support needs as well as take on large and complex design responsibilities supporting project tasks. You'll also engage with project and business sponsors refining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions. As a Principal Engineer I, you also facilitate dialogue and activities, and work to ensure team collaboration including teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for IT audiences. In this role, you'll also develop the technical skills of one more junior engineer. Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible. Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs prevail which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives. Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank which can feed operational results of our business partners. Work independently or sometimes with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper ongoing reference of the given solution, including physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models while enforcing standards, as well as assisting in the modification or buildout of procedures that support areas of operations across IT. Serve as the technology leader for foundational banking services supporting mission-critical money movement processes, ensuring platform reliability, scalability, security, and operational readiness. Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams, enabling effective decision-making, removing delivery impediments, and ensuring adherence to engineering standards, security requirements, and enterprise architecture principles. Lead and coordinate complex production deployments, release activities, and cutover implementations, delivering seamless go-live executions with minimal risk and no disruption to business operations or customer services. Ensure adequate risk management and security processes/controls are established and maintained in alignment with the risk appetite for the Bank, as well as applicable regulatory and enterprise risk management expectations. Implement safety procedures and data recovery plans. Develop user manuals, as well as policies, procedures, and safety protocols. Design and implement cloud-native solutions (preferably Azure) to migrate, replace, and enhance existing applications. Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues related to Azure Functions, serverless integrations, and cloud infrastructure.

Requirements

8+ years of related experience including enterprise engineering supporting mission-critical banking platforms, integration technologies, cloud services, automation, and regulatory-compliant technology operations.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field required.
Advanced to expert experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously with an established expertise in one or more key domains of the bank (Deposits, Loans, Operations or Reporting)with the ability to walk-through top-level process design.
Capable of working with regulatory partners like the CFPB, OCC and FRB through audits and collaboration efforts as situations arise.
Advanced to expert familiarity with the capability model across IT and the applications and infrastructures available for engagement in solutioning across the bank to develop results that leverage existing capabilities in addition to implementing new solutions when required.
Experience in the design, enhancement, and compliance to all governance frameworks across the IT organization to ensure proper compliance to published procedures and standards.
Advanced speaking and writing communication skills.
Working knowledge of enterprise integration patterns, event-driven architectures, APIs, secure file transfer technologies, and distributed systems is required.
Experience managing and supporting enterprise platforms such as workload automation, managed file transfer (MFT), messaging systems, API integrations, observability platforms, or comparable mission-critical middleware technologies is required.
Understanding of Scripting commands, techniques, and its usages including technologies such as PowerShell, Python, Perl, etc.
Intermediate to advanced experience with the execution KPIs and timelines with proven ability to analyze a variety of data and summarize findings in applicable reports or other communication mediums.
Utilize data to identify areas of improvement and opportunities for growth by collaborating with business and tech leads.
Advanced to expert knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards, and practices.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree or MBA preferred.
Experience with cloud platforms and services, preferably Microsoft Azure, including integration, monitoring, identity management, security controls, and automation is preferred.
Experience with relational database platforms (SQL Server, Oracle, etc.) and the ability to assemble and run complex queries preferred.
Experience with CI/CD, agile development methodologies and iterative product enhancement is preferred.
Advanced to expert knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking is preferred.
Previous leadership experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in multiple functional areas/domains on system processes and data structures that support multiple technology disciplines.
Support the Common Services teams and deliver complex projects in designated domain(s) or functional area(s) to maintain the security posture on time and on budget.
Provide technical oversight of ~10 key applications including BMC Control M job scheduler, File Exchange/Account Extract, Cleo Harmony SFTP, Babel Messaging-Email Services, Twilio-SendGrid platform, ELK Application Logging and Reporting Platform, and Event Management.
Partner closely with business stakeholders and product owners to understand evolving business needs and translate them into technical solutions.
Develop deep expertise in each platform's product capabilities and design, build, and deliver solutions and enhancements to existing products and services in Common Services portfolio.
Ensure platform roadmaps, enhancements, and day-to-day delivery remain tightly aligned with stakeholder priorities and the bank's operational and compliance objectives.
Provide SME expertise in respective and adjacent domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant, and reliable.
Identify development and support needs and take on large and complex design responsibilities supporting project tasks.
Engage with project and business sponsors refining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions.
Facilitate dialogue and activities, and work to ensure team collaboration including teams outside of your domain.
Develop effective presentations and narratives for IT audiences.
Develop the technical skills of one or more junior engineers.
Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible.
Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs prevail which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives.
Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank.
Work independently or sometimes with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper ongoing reference of the given solution, including physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models while enforcing standards.
Assist in the modification or buildout of procedures that support areas of operations across IT.
Serve as the technology leader for foundational banking services supporting mission-critical money movement processes, ensuring platform reliability, scalability, security, and operational readiness.
Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams, enabling effective decision-making, removing delivery impediments, and ensuring adherence to engineering standards, security requirements, and enterprise architecture principles.
Lead and coordinate complex production deployments, release activities, and cutover implementations, delivering seamless go-live executions with minimal risk and no disruption to business operations or customer services.
Ensure adequate risk management and security processes/controls are established and maintained in alignment with the risk appetite for the Bank, as well as applicable regulatory and enterprise risk management expectations.
Implement safety procedures and data recovery plans.
Develop user manuals, as well as policies, procedures, and safety protocols.
Design and implement cloud-native solutions (preferably Azure) to migrate, replace, and enhance existing applications.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues related to Azure Functions, serverless integrations, and cloud infrastructure.