Location: GLASGOW, LANARKSHIRE, United Kingdom

VP, Lead Software Engineer (Backend/AWS + React | AI-first Tooling & Automation)

Role summary

We're seeking a VP-level Lead Software Engineer with a strong backend engineering profile to lead the design and delivery of scalable, secure, cloud-native services on AWS, paired with React UI experience to ensure seamless end-to-end execution within a regulated financial services environment. You'll raise the bar on reliability and operational excellence, and drive an AI-first engineering paradigmembedding AI tooling and automation into daily development while maintaining strict adherence to regulatory, compliance, and risk management standards.

What you'll do

• AI-first SDLC: standardize AI-assisted workflows for coding, test creation, code review, documentation, debugging, and incident responseensuring all AI tooling usage complies with firm-wide governance, model risk management, and data privacy policies.
• Lead backend architecture and delivery owning core services on AWS and partnering closely on React UI implementation.
• Own technical strategy: define target backend/cloud architecture, engineering standards, and near-/long-term roadmaps aligned with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and risk appetite.
• Design and build scalable backend systems on AWS (APIs, event-driven services, data integration, identity/security patterns, performance and cost controls) that meet financial industry standards for data integrity, auditability, and resilience.
• Ensure strong React implementation: contribute to UI architecture where needed, guide reusable patterns, and ensure the front end cleanly integrates with backend contracts.
• Automate engineering hygiene: CI/CD improvements, quality gates, dependency management, and developer self-service to reduce toil and increase throughput while maintaining audit trails and change management controls.
• Drive production excellence: observability, resiliency, SLOs, incident management, and post-incident learning with measurable improvements aligned to business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) standards.
• Collaborate with risk, compliance, and information security teams to ensure all engineering practices meet regulatory expectations (e.g., SOX, GDPR, SEC/FINRA, OCC guidelines).
• Mentor and grow engineers: coach technical depth (especially backend/AWS), strengthen ownership, and develop future tech leads within a financial services context.
• Stay hands-on in critical backend components and high-impact design decisions, especially where scale, security, data sensitivity, or regulatory compliance are at stake.

 

What success looks like (first 36 months)

• Roll out AI-first engineering workflows that measurably improve developer velocity and code quality, with appropriate governance guardrails for AI usage in a regulated environment.
• Improve delivery throughput by clarifying backend priorities, reducing blockers, and introducing measurable execution metricswhile maintaining compliance with change management and release governance.
• Reinforce or modernize AWS backend architecture with secure, scalable defaults and clear service/API standards that satisfy internal audit and regulatory review.
• Improve production readiness: stronger monitoring/logging/alerting and faster recovery through better runbooks and automation, aligned to firm-wide SLA and BC/DR expectations.

 

Required qualifications

• Proven experience leading delivery of production backend systems (as lead engineer / tech lead / engineering lead) in financial services, preferably within an investment bank or capital markets environment.
• Strong expertise in AWS (cloud-native architecture, security, scalability, reliability, and cost awareness) within a regulated industry context.
• Strong backend fundamentals: API design, distributed systems concepts, data modeling, integration patternswith experience handling high-volume, low-latency, and mission-critical financial workloads.
• Solid React experience sufficient to guide UI architecture and ensure high-quality integration with backend services.
• Deep understanding of financial services technology landscape: familiarity with trading systems, risk platforms, client onboarding, regulatory reporting, or similar banking domains.
• Demonstrated ability to set technical direction across engineers and influence stakeholders, including technology risk, compliance, and business partners.
• Strong engineering craft: testing strategy, CI/CD, observability, and operational excellence within a controlled, auditable environment.

 

Preferred qualifications

• Demonstrated AI tooling adoption (coding assistants, LLM-enabled workflows) with measurable impact on quality/velocity, ideally within a governance-conscious environment.
• Investment banking or markets technology experience (e.g., front-office tools, middle/back-office platforms, trade lifecycle, market data, or client-facing portals).
• Track record of building automation for developer productivity (pipelines, templates, self-service, guardrails) in a large-scale enterprise or financial institution.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and asynchronous patterns on AWS, particularly for real-time financial data processing or transaction workflows.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems incrementally within complex, regulated environments (migration strategies, strangler patterns, dual-running).
• Strong security mindset (threat modeling, least privilege, secrets management, encryption at rest/in transit for sensitive financial data).

 

Lead AWS backend services and AI-enabled delivery, partnering on React to build secure, resilient products.