Head of Automation and Tooling

Wells Fargo & Company; London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services company is seeking a Global Head of Automation & Tooling to drive operational efficiency and implement automation strategies. The role involves stakeholder management, collaboration with development functions, and leading a global team of automation professionals. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in systems engineering and technology architecture, with strong leadership and communication skills. This position offers the opportunity to shape the future of automation within the organization.

Qualifications

• Experience in Systems Engineering or Technology Architecture.
• Management or leadership experience in financial services.
• Proven expertise leading global automation functions.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the Global Automation & Tooling strategy.
• Lead cross-functional governance forums for automation opportunities.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder Management

Communication

Risk Awareness

Education

Systems Engineering

Technology Architecture

Tools

ServiceNow

AppDynamics

Splunk

Control-M

Job description

Wells Fargo is seeking an accomplished technology leader to serve as the Global Head of Automation & Tooling.

The individual will lead the strategy and implementation of Automation & Tooling within GPLT. The role is responsible for driving operational efficiency, removing manual toil, improving service delivery, and adoption of bank-recommended tooling. The role will involve stakeholder management and collaboration with the development function, with a focus on reducing RTB costs.

As a visible leader interfacing with CIOs, Risk, Engineering, and the Production platform, you will shape how the organization delivers change at scale – safely, smoothly, and sustainably.

In this role, you will:

1. Define and own the Global Automation & Tooling strategy, aligned with enterprise risk and transformation priorities.
2. Foster a culture of early engagement, proactive transition planning, and end-to-end service readiness.
3. Lead cross-functional governance forums to assess automation opportunities across the payments domain.
4. Develop a centralized Technical debt book of work and drive automation opportunities, including adoption of existing internal tooling within Payments.
5. Ensure all automation initiatives align with internal SDLC and control frameworks, with traceable approvals, test evidence, and production readiness as standard.
6. Establish and lead the Automation & Tooling Framework across payments, ensuring readiness from project initiation through Early Life Support (ELS) completion.
7. Adopt observability tooling for all assets within payments, including a migration away from non-strategic monitoring tools.
8. Promote a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and risk awareness within the organization.
9. Automate standard application pre-checks, in-flight validation, and post-event assurance—adapted for cloud, hybrid, and on-prem deployments.
10. Champion automation-first delivery using CI/CD pipelines, service health dashboards, and intelligent alerting.
11. Collaborate with platform engineering to embed operability standards, reduce manual intervention, and introduce self-healing capabilities.
12. Lead and mentor a global team of automation professionals, implementing SRE frameworks with key SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets to promote resiliency.
13. Build domain expertise across regions and foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and collaboration.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience in Systems Engineering, Technology Architecture, or equivalent through work experience, training, military service, or education.
• Management or leadership experience.
• Experience in technology or production engineering roles within financial services, including in senior leadership.
• Proven expertise leading global automation functions.
• Experience with real-time payments systems (e.g., Fedwire, CHAPS, RTGS) or liquidity platforms is highly desirable.
• Strong grasp of ITIL practices and modern DevOps/SRE methodologies.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills at the executive level.
• Data-driven, risk-aware mindset with proficiency in tools such as ServiceNow, AppDynamics, Splunk, Control-M, etc.

Posting End Date: 18 May 2025

About this role:

Wells Fargo is seeking an accomplished technology leader to serve as the Global Head of Automation & Tooling.

The individual will lead the strategy and implementation of Automation & Tooling within GPLT. The role is responsible for driving operational efficiency, removing manual toil, improving service delivery, and adoption of bank-recommended tooling. The role will involve stakeholder management and collaboration with the development function, with a focus on reducing RTB costs.

As a visible leader interfacing with CIOs, Risk, Engineering, and the Production platform, you will shape how the organization delivers change at scale – safely, smoothly, and sustainably.

In this role, you will:

1. Define and own the Global Automation & Tooling strategy, aligned with enterprise risk and transformation priorities.
2. Foster a culture of early engagement, proactive transition planning, and end-to-end service readiness.
3. Lead cross-functional governance forums to assess automation opportunities across the payments domain.
4. Develop a centralized Technical debt book of work and drive automation opportunities, including adoption of existing internal tooling within Payments.
5. Ensure all automation initiatives align with internal SDLC and control frameworks, with traceable approvals, test evidence, and production readiness as standard.
6. Establish and lead the Automation & Tooling Framework across payments, ensuring readiness from project initiation through Early Life Support (ELS) completion.
7. Adopt observability tooling for all assets within payments, including a migration away from non-strategic monitoring tools.
8. Promote a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and risk awareness within the organization.
9. Automate standard application pre-checks, in-flight validation, and post-event assurance—adapted for cloud, hybrid, and on-prem deployments.
10. Champion automation-first delivery using CI/CD pipelines, service health dashboards, and intelligent alerting.
11. Collaborate with platform engineering to embed operability standards, reduce manual intervention, and introduce self-healing capabilities.
12. Lead and mentor a global team of automation professionals, implementing SRE frameworks with key SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets that promote resiliency first mentality.
13. Build domain expertise across regions and foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and collaboration.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience in Systems Engineering, and Technology Architecture, or equivalent demonstrated through work experience, training, military experience, or education.
• Management or leadership experience.
• Experience in technology or production engineering roles within financial services, including in senior leadership.
• Proven expertise leading global automation functions.
• Experience with real-time payments systems (e.g., Fedwire, CHAPS, RTGS) or liquidity platforms is highly desirable.
• Strong grasp of ITIL practices and modern DevOps/SRE methodologies.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills at the executive level.
• Data-driven, risk-aware mindset with proficiency in tools such as ServiceNow, AppDynamics, Splunk, Control-M, etc.

Posting End Date: 18 May 2025

*Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

We Value Equal Opportunity

Wells Fargo is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Employees support our focus on building strong customer relationships balanced with a strong risk mitigating and compliance-driven culture which firmly establishes those disciplines as critical to the success of our customers and company. They are accountable for execution of all applicable risk programs (Credit, Market, Financial Crimes, Operational, Regulatory Compliance), which includes effectively following and adhering to applicable Wells Fargo policies and procedures, appropriately fulfilling risk and compliance obligations, timely and effective escalation and remediation of issues, and making sound risk decisions. There is emphasis on proactive monitoring, governance, risk identification and escalation, as well as making sound risk decisions consistent with the business unit’s risk appetite and all risk and compliance program requirements.

Candidates applying to job openings posted in Canada: Applications for employment are encouraged from all qualified candidates, including women, persons with disabilities, aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities. Accommodation for applicants with disabilities is available upon request during the recruitment process.

Applicants with Disabilities

To request a medical accommodation during the application or interview process, visit Disability Inclusion at Wells Fargo.

Drug and Alcohol Policy

Wells Fargo maintains a drug-free workplace. Please see our Drug and Alcohol Policy to learn more.

Wells Fargo Recruitment and Hiring Requirements:

a. Third-party recordings are prohibited unless authorized by Wells Fargo.

b. Wells Fargo requires you to directly represent your own experiences during the recruiting and hiring process.

About the company

Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company headquartered in San Francisco.