Vice President - Core Banking Platforms

RAKBANK; Dubai; On-site; AED 50,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Rakbank in Dubai seeks a Vice President to own and modernize core banking platforms, including Finacle Core, Wealth, ELMS, and related systems. The role focuses on platform resilience, API readiness, and end-to-end lifecycle management with a strong emphasis on automation and DevOps practices.

The ideal candidate has 15+ years in banking technology, with at least 5 years in platform ownership or senior management, and will drive transformational programs while ensuring 24/7 production stability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• 15+ years in banking technology with 5+ years in platform ownership or senior application management.

Responsibilities

• Own the complete lifecycle of core banking, lending, wealth, and supporting platforms.
• Maintain platform availability, uptime, service levels, and resilience.
• Establish operating standards for incident management, production monitoring, and capacity management.
• Oversee upgrades, patches, databases, middleware, and infrastructure dependencies.

Skills

Core banking ownership

Platform ownership

Banking technology

API governance

DevOps

Production operations

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Architecture direction

Cloud/automation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT / Engineering

Tools

Finacle Core

FLEXCUBE

Nucleus Lending

ELMS

Wealth platforms

Job description

Vice President - Core Banking Platforms Job Snapshot

Role: Vice President - Core Banking Platforms

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Industry: Banking

Function: IT Project Management

Experience: 15 years in banking technology, including 5 years in platform ownership or senior application management

Job Type: Full-time

Position Overview: Vice President - Core Banking Platforms in Dubai, United Arab Emirates is a senior Banking opportunity focused on the ownership, resilience, modernization, and continuous evolution of critical banking technology platforms. Rakbank is hiring an experienced technology leader to manage the full run-and-change lifecycle of core banking, lending, wealth, virtual account management, and related platforms while ensuring high availability, controlled transformation, API readiness, operational stability, and alignment with strategic business priorities.

Job Details

Country: United Arab Emirates

City: Dubai

Industry: Banking

Function: IT Project Management

Salary: 50000-75000 Estimated salary range based on similar jobs in the job city; please confirm the final offer with the employer.

Gender: Any

Candidate Nationality: Any

Job Type: Full-time

Role Context

The Vice President - Core Banking Platforms will act as the senior technology owner for a portfolio of mission-critical banking platforms including Finacle Core, Wealth, ELMS, VAM, Nucleus Lending, and FLEXCUBE. Each platform will be managed as a long-term technology product with clear accountability for service quality, availability, security, technical health, integration capability, and future development. The role combines operational leadership with transformation delivery. It requires continuous attention to production stability while enabling upgrades, new functionality, API integration, automation, infrastructure renewal, and strategic programmes. Decisions made in this position directly affect customer transactions, digital banking services, lending operations, wealth capabilities, operational efficiency, and the resilience of the bank 's technology estate.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the complete lifecycle of core banking, lending, wealth, and supporting platforms from day-to-day operations through modernization and strategic change.
• Maintain accountability for platform availability, uptime, service levels, performance indicators, resilience, and overall technology health.
• Establish operating standards for incident management, problem resolution, production monitoring, maintenance windows, capacity management, and service recovery.
• Ensure disaster recovery and business continuity arrangements remain tested, documented, and ready for activation.
• Maintain technology roadmaps that balance immediate operational requirements with business demand, regulatory priorities, architecture direction, and transformation initiatives.
• Lead changes to Finacle Core and associated banking platforms while protecting production stability and customer-facing services.
• Oversee upgrades, patches, databases, middleware, operating components, and infrastructure dependencies throughout their supported lifecycle.
• Coordinate complex platform releases and ensure changes undergo appropriate design review, testing, implementation controls, rollback planning, and post-deployment validation.
• Establish strong governance over platform configuration and customization to reduce unnecessary complexity and improve long-term maintainability. Technical debt will be actively managed rather than allowed to accumulate. The Vice President will identify ageing components, unsupported technologies, recurring operational weaknesses, and excessive customization, then prioritize remediation according to business impact and technology risk.
• Govern platform APIs and interfaces used by digital channels, business applications, middleware, external systems, and enterprise services.
• Ensure APIs are stable, appropriately documented, reusable, secure, monitored, and controlled throughout their lifecycle.
• Work with architecture and integration teams to establish effective interface patterns and reduce unnecessary point-to-point dependencies.
• Oversee batch processing environments and ensure critical banking schedules complete reliably within required processing windows.
• Maintain readiness of system integration testing, user acceptance testing, pre-production, and other controlled technology environments.
• Establish clear environment management practices covering configuration consistency, data requirements, release sequencing, and infrastructure readiness.
• Embed DevOps principles into platform delivery where appropriate to improve release quality, repeatability, automation, and deployment efficiency.
• Increase automation across monitoring, deployment, operational checks, reconciliation support, environment management, and recurring technical activities.
• Track operational and delivery measures including uptime, mean time to recovery, incident volumes, recurring defects, change success rates, service availability, and API performance.
• Present platform health, operational risks, technology debt, delivery progress, and performance indicators to senior stakeholders.
• Lead engineers, business analysts, application specialists, and operational resources responsible for the platform portfolio.
• Build technical capability within the team through structured development, knowledge transfer, succession planning, and clear accountability.
• Coordinate closely with business, technology, operations, risk, information security, architecture, infrastructure, and programme teams.
• Support strategic banking initiatives by translating business requirements into sustainable platform capabilities rather than short-term technical solutions.

Ideal Profile

Candidates should hold a bachelor 's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a closely related discipline. The position requires more than 15 years of experience in banking technology, including at least five years in platform ownership, senior application management, core banking leadership, or a comparable technology management role. Strong practical knowledge of core banking systems is essential. Experience with Finacle is particularly relevant, while exposure to Nucleus Lending, FLEXCUBE, or similar enterprise banking platforms will provide additional value. Candidates should understand banking processes across retail banking, Islamic banking, lending, wealth management, and virtual account management. The role requires detailed knowledge of high-availability banking operations, batch processing, production support, release governance, integration architecture, platform resilience, and 24-hour service environments. Experience managing engineering and operations teams responsible for critical production applications is important. Strong familiarity with API management, application integration, DevOps practices, test environment governance, technology modernization, and major system changes is expected. The successful candidate should be comfortable making decisions where operational stability, technical risk, delivery deadlines, customer impact, and strategic priorities must be balanced carefully. Leadership credibility is essential, particularly when coordinating specialists across multiple technology disciplines and influencing stakeholders responsible for business-critical banking services.

Skills Set

• Core banking platform ownership
• Finacle Core
• FLEXCUBE
• Nucleus Lending
• Wealth platforms
• ELMS
• Virtual account management
• Banking technology
• Platform lifecycle management
• Application management
• Platform engineering
• Production operations
• Incident management
• Problem management
• SLA management
• SLO management
• Uptime monitoring
• MTTR management
• Disaster recovery
• Business continuity planning
• Core banking batch processing
• API governance
• API lifecycle management
• Platform integration
• Middleware
• Database lifecycle management
• Infrastructure lifecycle management
• Release management
• Change management
• DevOps
• Deployment automation
• Test environment governance
• SIT
• UAT
• Pre-production environments
• Technical debt management
• Platform customization governance
• Configuration management
• Banking system resilience
• Performance monitoring
• Operational automation
• Technology roadmap development
• KPI reporting
• Team leadership
• Engineering team management
• Retail banking technology
• Islamic banking systems
• Lending technology
• Wealth management technology

Why Join Us

This role provides technology leaders with ownership of platforms that sit at the center of banking operations in Dubai and across the wider UAE. The portfolio spans core banking, lending, wealth, integration, and digital enablement, creating substantial influence over both operational resilience and future technology capability. The position also offers exposure to major transformation programmes, enterprise modernization, API-led banking, automation, and large-scale platform change. For an experienced banking technology executive, it provides a strong opportunity to shape long-term platform architecture while developing teams responsible for some of the bank 's most business-critical systems.

About the Company

Rakbank is a UAE banking institution providing retail, business, corporate, digital, lending, and wealth management services. The bank continues to invest in modern banking platforms, technology resilience, digital services, and operational transformation to support customers and businesses across Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates.