Polaris Application Engineering Technical Lead - II

More than 45 years ago, John C. Bogle had a vision to start an investment company that did things differently. A company with no external shareholders. Where all the profits were invested back into the business and used to lower costs. Evidently, it was as bold as it was brilliant. To this day, Vanguard Group still has no external shareholders. That means no share prices to protect, and no profits to generate for outside owners.

Today, Vanguard is one of the world's largest investment management companies, serving more than 50 million investors worldwide. For more than 25 years Vanguard Australia has been supporting individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members to achieve their long-term financial goals.

Our Team & Opportunity

This is a permanent Technical Lead role in the Polaris team in Australia. Polaris program of work is the modernization of the legacy EIP system that supports the sourcing, storing and distribution of Vanguard Investment Product Data.

This role is responsible for providing superior Technical Leadership to Australian Polaris team. You will guide the fully stacked global product team for high quality technical solutions. Additionally, the Australia team is one of the 10 teams globally that is working on the Polaris program of work. Therefore, you will require to maintain a close working relationship with the other tech leads and architects in the program while representing the team in global tech meetings.

Core Responsibilities

• Provides expert level IT investment systems Technical Lead services and direction for critical software, middleware, or hardware projects on multiple platforms. Provides technical expertise and completes complex development, design, implementation, architecture design specification, and maintenance activities.
• Ensures the viability of IT investment systems deliverables. Recommends development options and approves the team's technical deliverables. Conducts testing, including functionality, technical limitations, and security.
• Identifies potential solutions and approves technical solutions proposed by team members. Elevates complex technical issues to IT experts. Resolves technical problems discovered by testers and internal clients. Responds to and re-solves technical issues in a timely manner. Research issues and performs root cause analysis. Anticipates technology problems and prevents them.
• Builds relationships with other tech leads locally and globally to ensure the product team can have its requirements appropriately prioritized when dependent on other upstream or downstream products.
• Able to summarize and effortlessly communicate highly technical concepts to senior business management to ensure understanding.
• Communicates with key stakeholders on project issues and implications. Evaluates the impacts of change requests on technologies and effectively persuades and influences others on ideas.
• Maintains a current and working knowledge of IT development methodology, architecture design, and technical standards. Mentors IT staff and identifies training needs. As new standards are instituted, ensures their usage by team members.
• Reviews and approves documentation and diagrams created by IT team members. Writes documentation, including technical standards and processes.
• Identifies opportunities for continuous quality improvement of technical standards, methodologies, and technologies.
• Participates in design, code, and test inspections through-out product life cycle to identify issues. Participates as a technical consultant at other project meetings. Presents technical status and issues at milestone reviews.
• Maintains a comprehensive understanding of Investment Management business functions. Combines technical and functional knowledge to produce highly functional solutions to Investment Management business problems.

• Thoroughly understands and complies with Information Technology and Information Security policies and procedures and verifies that deliverables meet requirements.
• Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

• Minimum of eight years related work experience, with at least three years of development experience.
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience. Graduate degree preferred.
• Hands on experience of multiple IT platforms and languages: AWS (DynamoDB, S3, Lambda, Step Functions, Cloud Formation, SNS, SQS, EC2, AppSync, ECS, Athena, DataSync, Glue, DMS, GraphQL, IAM and Eventbridge), OKTA, Python
• A strong and in-depth understanding of AWS, CI/CD practices, and modern development practices. Tooling such as Git/GitHub, Bamboo, SonarQube, etc.
• A passionate Lead Developer with broad knowledge in various methodology practices and concepts: full product life cycle, Agile methodology, DevSecOps principals etc
• Lead the team delivering quality and clean code constantly.
• Knowledge of investments management, java and AI/ML would be an added advantage.

• Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.
• This position is hybrid and would require you to work in the office location Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Vanguard's continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: "Do the right thing."

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard's core purpose through our values.

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard's core purpose.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.