Lead Forward Deployed Engineer

Vanguard; Melbourne; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Vanguard is seeking a Lead Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with partners in IMG and Finance, turning complex ideas into production-quality AI-enabled solutions. You will shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive initiatives across regions.

The role blends hands-on delivery with strategic leadership, aligning with GIFS and Investment Management leaders to deliver measurable value and scalable patterns for future engagements.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building production-grade AI-enabled solutions.
• Experience with prompt engineering, RAG, and tool-use patterns.
• Strong software and data engineering foundations with testing and version control.

Responsibilities

• Embed with researchers, portfolio managers, and traders to surface high-value opportunities and align backlogs.
• Architect, build, and validate AI-enabled applications and redesigned workflows from MVP to production.
• Lead the replacement of high-risk tools (Excel/Access/Tableau) with governed, scalable solutions across the business.
• Shape scalable engineering patterns for AI-enabled solutions with human-in-the-loop controls and evaluation methods.
• Mentor engineers and communicate delivery status and value to GIFS and leadership.

Skills

Software engineering

AI-enabled solutions

CI/CD & production-quality engineering

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Job description

About Vanguard

50 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 30 years Vanguard Australia has been supporting individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members to achieve their long-term financial goals.

Team & Opportunity

The Global Investment & Finance Systems (GIFS) Lead Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a senior individual contributor who embeds directly with partners in Vanguard's Investment Management Group (IMG) and Finance division to turn complex ideas and emerging opportunities into governed, production-quality solutions. Lead FDEs work alongside portfolio managers, traders, analysts, and finance professionals to understand their workflows, shape and prioritize high-value opportunities, and personally architect, build, and validate solutions. They exercise senior technical and business judgment across business value, technical feasibility, risk, and operational readiness, guiding successful capabilities from experimentation through the appropriate software development lifecycle process.

This role will align with Vanguard's international business, supporting quantitative research across asset classes, portfolio management, and trading capabilities across regions. The Lead FDE will remain deeply engaged in hands‑on delivery while setting technical direction, mentoring other engineers, advising international business and GIFS leaders, and translating direct delivery experience into reusable patterns and capabilities for the broader organization.

Core Responsibilities

• Embed directly with researchers, portfolio managers, and traders across Vanguard's international business to understand complex workflows, surface high-value opportunities from each region, and own their prioritization through a shared global backlog in close consultation with GIFS and Investment Management leaders, aligning FDE capacity to measurable investment and operational outcomes.
• Serve as a senior technical partner to international business and GIFS leaders, applying domain and engineering judgment to determine when AI, machine learning, optimization, deterministic development, or human judgment is the appropriate response to a business problem.
• Personally architect, build, and validate AI-enabled applications, automations, and redesigned workflows, leading complex solutions from early experimentation through MVP and limited production.
• Shape and lead the systematic replacement of high-risk and critical-risk Excel, Access, Tableau, and other EUCT solutions across investment and supporting functions, migrating valuable logic and data into governed, supportable environments via an SDLC process.
• Establish scalable engineering patterns for AI-enabled solutions, including agent workflows, human-in-the-loop controls, reusable components, and evaluation methods addressing quality, safety, latency, cost, and operational readiness.
• Exercise senior technical judgment over solution maturity, partnering with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Platform, Security, and Risk teams to recommend whether capabilities should be refined, elevated, transitioned, reused, or retired.
• Modernize workflows and decision-support processes across multiple investment domains and functions by reducing manual effort, strengthening data quality and governance, and enabling improved insights, faster decisions, and more efficient execution.
• Lead through hands‑on delivery by setting technical direction, developing critical solution components, mentoring other engineers, and resolving complex technical or delivery barriers across related engagements.
• Translate successful international engagements into reusable code, templates, evaluation methods, reference patterns, and implementation guidance that strengthen future FDE delivery across regions and the broader GIFS organization.
• Partner with international business and GIFS leadership to communicate delivery status and realized value, identify broader deployment opportunities, and shape the continued evolution of Vanguard's engineering practices and responsible AI adoption.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE ROLE (COMPETENCIES)

• Deep software and data engineering expertise, with a record of personally building reliable, maintainable, well-documented production solutions using modern testing, CI/CD, logging, versioning, and source-control practices.
• Hands‑on expertise architecting and deploying AI-enabled and agentic solutions, including prompt engineering, RAG, tool-use patterns, human-in-the-l