AI Forward DevOps Staff Engineer II

westernalliancebank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 130,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salaries

Equity/ownership stake

Medical and dental insurance

Generous time off

401k matching program

Tuition assistance program

Employee volunteer program

Wellness program

Job summary

Western Alliance Bank is seeking an AI Forward DevOps Staff Engineer II to shape end-to-end cloud-native solutions for Lending and Specialized Loan Services. You will lead design work, implement AI-enabled full-stack systems, and enforce security and governance standards across Azure-based platforms.

You will collaborate with architects, business partners, and senior engineers, drive DevOps practices, and mentor junior engineers while delivering reliable, scalable APIs, data flows, and

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering or IT development experience in a financial services or lending environment.
• Experience delivering full-stack applications and AI-assisted development.
• Experience with cloud-native solutions on Azure including APIs, data integrations, and CI/CD pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of AI-enabled, cloud-native full-stack solutions for Lending and SLS.
• Guide teams with DevOps practices, architecture governance, and secure coding standards.
• Collaborate with architects, engineers, QA, and business partners to translate requirements into scalable solutions.

Skills

DevOps

Full-stack

AI-assisted

Cloud-native

Python

React

Azure

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Azure DevOps

GitHub

Azure API Management

Azure Pipelines

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Job Title: AI Forward DevOps Staff Engineer II

Location: Block 23

What you'll do:

As a Staff Engineer II, you'll provide expertise in a suite of technical tools and products in a Specialized Loan Services, Operations domain within Lending to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant and reliable. You'll identify, develop and support needs, as well as taking on design responsibilities supporting project tasks. As the Staff Engineer II, you'll facilitate dialogue and activities to ensure team collaboration, including teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for their teams. In this role, you will collaborate closely with business partners, architects, and senior engineers to deliver AI-enabled full-stack solutions that support Specialized Loan Services and modernization efforts. You are expected to demonstrate strong technical judgment, guide junior engineers, and apply established architectural, security, and governance standards while continuing to grow toward broader technical leadership. Lead the strategic planning of a project as it relates to technical solution design. Design and implement engineering principles aimed at reliability practices and sound recovery procedures. Design transaction specific application performance monitoring metrics that can be captured and passed to business partners. Develop and maintain technical documentation, including system configurations and procedures while also ensuring compliance with IT policies, procedures, and industry standards. Develop desktop procedures when needed that others follow. Build and deliver AI-enabled, cloud-native full-stack solutions for the Lending segment and Specialized Loan Services (SLS) organization using Azure DevOps, .NET, Python, React (Vite), SQL, and ETL technologies, aligned with enterprise architecture and security standards. Apply an AI-forward developer mindset leveraging prompt engineering, RAG patterns, MCP, and tools like GitHub Copilot/LLMs to improve development efficiency, solution quality, and workflow automation. Develop secure, scalable APIs and integration services using Azure API Management (APIM), ensuring adherence to standards for security, versioning, and observability across Lending and SLS platforms. Deliver end-to-end full-stack engineering solutions across frontend, backend, data, and cloud layers, following secure coding, testing, and performance best practices. Drive DevOps and CI/CD practices and guide other developers using Azure DevOps (ADO), GitHub, and Azure Pipelines, improving deployment reliability and release consistency in alignment with Lending Tower delivery playbooks. Collaborate with architects, engineering, QA, and business teams to translate Lending and SLS requirements into scalable solutions, ensuring alignment with architectural standards and operational expectations.

What you'll need:

7+ years of related experience in software engineering or IT development, with hands-on experience delivering full-stack applications as well as AI assisted development in a Financial Services or Lending environment. Bachelor's degree in related field required. Previous technical leadership experience, such as leading features, components, or small workstreams, preferred. Intermediate to advanced knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking, with experience supporting Lending platforms, Collateral tracking, borrowing base calculations, loan servicing, integrations, or reporting is strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience developing cloud-native solutions on Azure, including APIs, data integrations, and CI/CD pipelines. Practical experience using AI-assisted development techniques (e.g., Prompt Engineering, RAG patterns, or GenAI tools) within an enterprise development environment. Advanced knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards and practices. Proven experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously. Additional experience with pipeline development and leveraging Azure DevOps while working on multiple projects simultaneously. Advanced ability to see the big picture and align projects with organizational goals. Expertise in resolving conflicts and addressing challenges as well as skilled at identifying and mitigating risks at the project level. Proficient in governance patterns tied to intake, technical reviews and architectural compliance. Advanced speaking and writing communication skills. May require up to 25% travel.

Benefits you'll love:

We offer all the important things you'd want - like competitive salaries, an ownership stake in the company, medical and dental insurance, time off, a great 401k matching program, tuition assistance program, an employee volunteer program, and a wellness program. In addition, you'll have the opportunity to bolster your business knowledge, learning the ins and outs of how successful companies operate and mana