Executive Director of Development - United Overseas Bank

United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB); Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) is seeking a senior technology leader to own end-to-end strategy, delivery and operations for Group Wholesale Banking Digital Banking platforms, spanning cash management, payments, and trade finance journeys. You will scale a global delivery org of 300+ engineers across on-shore and off-shore locations, owning delivery outcomes, reliability and regulatory compliance.

You will lead multi-tribe Agile models, oversee risk controls, and drive continuous improvement

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science/engineering (or equivalent).
• 10+ years in technology leadership overseeing large delivery organizations with a proven operational management track record.
• Demonstrated success building and running delivery at scale (≥300 engineers) across on-shore/off-shore and multiple geographies.
• Deep domain expertise in commercial/wholesale and business banking delivery with ASEAN and China exposure (cash, payments, trade).
• Hands-on production support leadership with measurable outcomes (stability, MTTR, release reliability) and a bias for continuous improvement.
• Methodologies: Strong, practical command of Agile, Disciplined Agile, SAFe, and Waterfall; ability to tailor models to business/regulatory needs.
• Demand management in complex matrix organisations with multi-stakeholder prioritisation.
• Regulatory & compliance technology risk experience across ASEAN and China (e.g., controls, audits, data, scheme mandates).
• Strategic storyteller with executive presence; data-driven decision-making and clear risk trade-offs.
• Talent magnet and coach of leaders; proven ability to scale leaders of leaders.

Responsibilities

• Define the multi-year digital banking technology strategy and roadmaps for GWB channels and journeys; ensure alignment with Business, Product, Risk, and Country Tech leads.
• Drive the payments platform transformation and migration of country-specific schemes into the target platform, ensuring resilience, security, and performance SLAs.
• Govern platform architecture across channels, integration, data, and security layers; champion API-first, event-driven, and cloud-ready patterns.
• Build and run a scaled delivery organization across multiple geographies (on-shore/off-shore), optimizing capacity, throughput, and quality.
• Stand up and mature multi-tribe Agile operating models (Agile, Disciplined Agile, SAFe) while adapting to Waterfall where appropriate (e.g., regulatory releases, vendor constraints).
• Oversee program/portfolio planning, dependency management, and release governance across channels, payments, and trade programs.
• Provide thought leadership and knowledge-sharing across Digital Banking and adjacent tech groups.
• Own production support for digital channels and underlying services, ensuring MTTR, change success rate, incident prevention, and stable releases.
• Embed SRE practices (SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, observability) and DevSecOps (CI/CD, automated testing, progressive delivery).
• Establish post-incident learning loops and drive continuous improvement across squads and vendors.
• Be a Part of the UOB Family
• UOB is an equal opportunity employer. UOB does not discriminate on the basis of a candidate's age, race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or other non-merit factors. All employment decisions at UOB are based on business needs, job requirements and qualifications. If you require any assistance or accommodations to be made for the recruitment process, please inform us when you submit your online application.

Skills

Delivery leadership

Scaled delivery

Agile/SAFe

SRE/DevOps

Regulatory/compliance

Executive stakeholder mgmt

Talent development

Multi-geography delivery

Payments platform knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science/engineering

Tools

API platforms

Event streaming

Microservices

Container orchestration

CI/CD

Job description

Company: 1011 United Overseas Bank Ltd

About UOB

United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) is a leading bank in Asia with a global network of more than 500 branches and offices in 19 countries and territories in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. In Asia, we operate through our head office in Singapore and banking subsidiaries in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as branches and offices. Our history spans more than 80 years. Over this time, we have been guided by our values - Honorable, Enterprising, United and Committed. This means we always strive to do what is right, build for the future, work as one team and pursue long-term success. It is how we work, consistently, be it towards the company, our colleagues or our customers.

Job Description

Role Purpose

In this role, you will lead the end-to-end technology strategy, delivery and operations for Group Wholesale Banking (GWB) Digital Banking platforms - spanning cash management, payments, and trade finance journeys-while scaling and optimizing a global delivery organization (≥300 engineers) across on-shore and off-shore locations. You'll be responsible for owning delivery outcomes, production reliability, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement to accelerate business growth and customer experience for wholesale and business banking across ASEAN markets and China.

Scope & Impact

• Platforms & Journeys: Corporate and SME digital channels including onboarding, payments & collections, liquidity, FX, and trade finance journeys; deep integration into underlying payments platforms and country schemes.
• Markets: Multi-country delivery across ASEAN and China, balancing local regulatory and scheme requirements with group-level architecture standards.
• Scale: multi-tribe, multi-vendor ecosystem with ≥300 engineers operating a follow-the-sun model for delivery and production support.
• Accountability: Strategy → roadmap → execution → run; budget ownership; talent & vendor management; executive stakeholder management.

Key Responsibilities

1) Strategy & Architecture Leadership

• Define the multi-year digital banking technology strategy and roadmaps for GWB channels and journeys; ensure alignment with Business, Product, Risk, and Country Tech leads.
• Drive the payments platform transformation and migration of country-specific schemes into the target platform, ensuring resilience, security, and performance SLAs.
• Govern platform architecture across channels, integration, data, and security layers; champion API-first, event-driven, and cloud-ready patterns.

2) Delivery Leadership at Scale (≥300 engineers)

• Build and run a scaled delivery organization across multiple geographies (on-shore/off-shore), optimizing capacity, throughput, and quality.
• Stand up and mature multi-tribe Agile operating models (Agile, Disciplined Agile, SAFe) while adapting to Waterfall where appropriate (e.g., regulatory releases, vendor constraints).
• Oversee program/portfolio planning, dependency management, and release governance across channels, payments, and trade programs.
• Provide thought leadership and knowledge-sharing across Digital Banking and adjacent tech groups.

3) Production Reliability, SRE & Continuous Improvement

• Own production support for digital channels and underlying services, ensuring MTTR, change success rate, incident prevention, and stable releases.
• Embed SRE practices (SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, observability) and DevSecOps (CI/CD, automated testing, progressive delivery).
• Establish post-incident learning loops and drive continuous improvement across squads and vendors.

4) Risk, Regulatory & Compliance

• Ensure adherence to technology risk management frameworks and regulatory requirements across ASEAN and China territories (e.g., data residency, payments scheme mandates, technology risk controls).
• Partner with Group Risk, Compliance, Internal Audit, and Country Tech to meet control objectives and audit readiness, with clear evidence-based governance and reporting.

5) Stakeholder & Demand Management (Matrix Environment)

• Run demand intake and prioritization across multiple business stakeholders (Cash, Trade, FX, Channels), balancing RTB and CTB portfolios.
• Maintain executive-ready communications on delivery health, business value, and risk posture; set expectations on scope, cost, timelines, and trade-offs.

6) People, Culture & Capability

• Recruit, develop, and retain top talent; grow Chapter Leads, Tribe Leads, and senior engineers; succession planning and career pathways.
• Drive a high-performance culture-clarity of outcomes, empowerment, coaching, and psychological safety; reinforce engineering excellence standards.
• Lead vendor and partner ecosystems; align SOWs, KPIs, and incentives to engineering excellence and business value.

Required Experience & Skills

Must-have

• Bachelor's degree in computer science/engineering (or equivalent).
• 10+ years in technology leadership overseeing large delivery organizations with a proven operational management track record.
• Demonstrated success building and running delivery at scale (≥300 engineers) across on-shore/off-shore and multiple geographies.
• Deep domain expertise in commercial/wholesale and business banking delivery with ASEAN and China exposure (cash, payments, trade).
• Hands-on production support leadership with measurable outcomes (stability, MTTR, release reliability) and a bias for continuous improvement.
• Methodologies: Strong, practical command of Agile, Disciplined Agile, SAFe, and Waterfall; ability to tailor models to business/regulatory needs.
• Demand management in complex matrix organisations with multi-stakeholder prioritisation.
• Regulatory & compliance technology risk experience across ASEAN and China (e.g., controls, audits, data, scheme mandates).
• Strategic storyteller with executive presence; data-driven decision-making and clear risk trade-offs.
• Talent magnet and coach of leaders; proven ability to scale leaders of leaders.

Strong plus

• Led payments platform transformations and scheme migrations at regional scale.
• Track record uplifting engineering standards (architecture, testing, performance, security) and maturing SRE/observability.
• Experience with API platforms, event streaming, microservices, container orchestration, automated QA, performance engineering.
• Vendor ecosystem leadership (SI/product/reg-tech) with commercial acumen and budget accountability.
• Relevant certifications a plus (e.g., SAFe, PMI-ACP, ITIL).

Additional Requirements

Be a Part of the UOB Family

UOB is an equal opportunity employer. UOB does not discriminate on the basis of a candidate's age, race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or other non-merit factors. All employment decisions at UOB are based on business needs, job requirements and qualifications. If you require any assistance or accommodations to be made for the recruitment process, please inform us when you submit your online application.