Senior Software Engineer – Backend, Serverless

The Vanguard Group•Charlotte, NC

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Vanguard is on a mission to work for the long-term financial wellbeing of its clients and lead through product and services that transform clients' lives. This role is for a Senior Software Engineer focused on Backend and Serverless technologies, contributing to hybrid batch and real-time trading workflows. The position involves designing, building, testing, and operating applications, performing system analysis, and building cloud-native solutions on AWS. The engineer will drive technical decisions, contribute to code reviews, shape testing approaches, and own delivery end-to-end, including CI/CD and production support. The role also includes building observability into services, mentoring engineers, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and continuously improving software development and operational practices.

Requirements

Minimum of five years related work experience, with at least one year of development experience.
Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience.
Bachelor’s degree in a related field (or equivalent training/experience).
5+ years of professional software engineering experience with hands-on backend development.
Strong programming skills, with deep experience in Node.js and TypeScript
Experience building and supporting cloud-native, serverless, event-driven systems or distributed systems.
Strong engineering fundamentals (development methodologies, architecture standards, system design).
Planning and organizational skills; able to manage work independently and collaboratively.

Nice To Haves

Experience with high-throughput, highly available platforms (trading-specific, financial services or other regulated domains is a plus).
Hands-on experience with AWS services such as Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, Kafka, IAM, EKS, and CloudFormation.
Comfortable working in production-focused teams, including CI/CD pipelines, automation, and on-call or incident response.
Experience designing and operating event-driven architectures
Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and lead technical initiatives end-to-end.

Responsibilities

Design, build, test, and operate backend and serverless applications powering hybrid batch and real-time trading workflows.
Perform senior-level system analysis to translate business requirements into maintainable designs and well-structured code.
Build cloud-native and serverless solutions on AWS (e.g., Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, EKS) using event-driven and distributed-system patterns.
Drive technical design decisions, contribute thoughtful code reviews, and help shape testing approaches that improve quality, security, and performance.
Own delivery end-to-end: CI/CD, release readiness, and safe promotion through development, test, and production environments.
Provide production support and incident response; troubleshoot complex issues and resolve them.
Build observability into services (logging, metrics, tracing) and use instrumentation to understand customer behavior and business outcomes.
Mentor engineers and collaborate across roles; share knowledge and help the team deliver with speed and reliability.
Partner with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, Tech Leads, and peer engineers to shape roadmaps and deliver measurable value.
Continuously improve how we build and run software (automation, developer experience, reliability practices, and post-incident learning).