App Engineering Innovation Lead

Janus Henderson Group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Janus Henderson Group in London seeks a senior engineering leader to drive API platforms strategy and hands-on delivery across Azure API Management and the BlackRock Aladdin API platform. You will shape the guild’s roadmap, mentor engineers and partner with security, risk and architecture teams.

This hybrid role blends technical leadership with practical experimentation, guiding time-boxed research, proofs of concept and reusable patterns that improve reliability, security and developer

Qualifications

• Extensive hands-on software engineering experience across multiple teams.
• Deep expertise in API and integration architecture.
• Cloud platform experience with Azure API Management.
• Experience applying AI-assisted engineering and automation.
• Ability to translate ambiguous business problems into validated technical approaches.
• Experience leading shared technology platforms and developer experience.

Responsibilities

• Engineering innovation and strategy: Define and deliver the guild's roadmap for AI-enabled engineering and modern software practices.
• Applied research and rapid prototyping: Lead time-boxed studies addressing business opportunities and engineering barriers.
• Evidence-led decision-making: Frame problems, test assumptions and guide direction.
• Hands-on technical leadership: Contribute to complex experiments and resolve constraints early.
• Platform ownership: Own strategy, lifecycle and outcomes for APIM and Aladdin API platform.
• Team and portfolio leadership: Build and lead a high-calibre specialist team.
• Stakeholder and vendor leadership: Collaborate with security, risk, infra, procurement and sponsors.

Skills

Hands-on software engineering

API and integration architecture

AI-assisted engineering

Translate ambiguous problems

Lead shared tech platforms

Lead specialists / influence peers

Commercial and risk judgement

Tools

Azure API Management

API platforms

Job description

Why work for us?

A career at Janus Henderson is more than a job, it's about investing in a brighter future together.

Our Mission at Janus Henderson is to help clients define and achieve superior financial outcomes through differentiated insights, disciplined investments, and world-class service. We will do this by protecting and growing our core business, amplifying our strengths and diversifying where we have the right.

Our Values are key to driving our success, and are at the heart of everything we do:

Clients Come First - Always | Execution Supersedes Intention | Together We Win | Diversity Improves Results | Truth Builds Trust

If our mission, values, and purpose align with your own, we would love to hear from you!

Your opportunity

This role offers the opportunity to lead a specialist engineering capability with influence across the Application Engineering Guild. It combines hands-on technical leadership, applied innovation and ownership of shared API platforms.

• Are you motivated by turning emerging technology into practical engineering capabilities?
• Do you enjoy solving ambiguous business and technical problems through rapid, evidence-led experimentation?
• Can you establish reusable patterns and improve engineering practices across multiple teams?
• Do you want accountability for strategic API platforms as well as leading a specialist engineering team?

What to expect when you join our firm

• Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
• Generous Holiday policies
• Excellent Health and Wellbeing benefits including corporate membership to Wellhub
• Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
• Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
• Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
• All employee events including networking opportunities and social activities
• Lunch allowance for use within our subsidized onsite canteen

What you will do

• Engineering innovation and strategy: Define and deliver the guild's roadmap for AI-enabled engineering, automation and modern software-development practices, aligned with enterprise architecture, security, risk and AI governance.
• Applied research and rapid prototyping: Lead a prioritised portfolio of time-boxed research, proofs of concept and prototypes addressing material business opportunities and engineering barriers.
• Evidence-led decision-making: Work with business sponsors and engineering leaders to frame ambiguous problems, test assumptions and recommend whether to proceed, change direction or stop.
• Hands-on technical leadership: Contribute directly to complex experiments and technical problem-solving, identifying integration, data, security, performance and operational constraints early.
• Cross-guild patterns and standards: Develop practical integration patterns, reference implementations, reusable components and automated controls covering secure development, testing, deployment, observability, resilience and maintainability.
• Engineering enablement: Coach teams, run practical enablement activities and use delivery feedback to improve shared tooling and patterns, increasing team self-sufficiency.
• Platform ownership: Own the strategy, roadmap, lifecycle, developer experience and service outcomes for Azure API Management (APIM) and the BlackRock Aladdin API platform.
• Platform service management: Establish clear accountability for platform reliability, security, capacity, onboarding, support, cost transparency, vendor dependencies and continuous improvement.
• Stakeholder and vendor leadership: Work with engineering leads, Solution Architecture, Cyber Security, Risk, Infrastructure and Operations, Procurement, business sponsors and strategic suppliers.
• Team and portfolio leadership: Build and lead a high-calibre specialist engineering team, set priorities, develop capability and balance innovation work with live-service platform obligations.
• Outcome measurement: Track improvements such as faster validation and handover, adoption of supported patterns, reduced delivery friction and rework, improved reliability and successful knowledge transfer.

Required skills

• Extensive hands-on software-engineering experience, including technical leadership across multiple teams, shared capabilities or enterprise platforms.
• Deep expertise in API and integration architecture, cloud platforms, software quality, delivery automation and operationally sustainable engineering.
• Experience applying AI-assisted engineering and automation beyond individual experimentation, with the ability to convert learning into reusable capabilities.
• A proven ability to translate ambiguous business problems into validated technical approaches through research, prototyping and evidence-based decision-making.
• Experience leading shared technology platforms, including roadmaps, lifecycle, service outcomes, vendor relationships and developer experience.
• Ability to lead specialists and influence peer leaders and senior stakeholders without relying solely on line authority.
• Strong commercial and risk judgement, with the ability to communicate technical opportunity, cost, trade-offs and risk clearly.

Nice to have

• Experience in investment management, financial services or another highly controlled environment.
• Hands-on experience with Azure API Management or comparable enterprise API-management platforms.
• Experience integrating with, governing or operating the BlackRock Aladdin API platform.
• Experience creating engineering-agent instructions, evaluation approaches, developer tooling or AI-augmented software-delivery workflows.

Supervisory responsibilities