AI Forward Principal Engineer I

Western Alliance Bank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Western Alliance Bank seeks a Principal Engineer I to deliver secure, compliant, and scalable solutions across Lending and Omni Service Fabric platforms. You will partner with architecture, product, and business stakeholders to shape strategy and drive engineering decisions.

The role requires extensive cloud experience, API design, and hands-on leadership. You will mentor engineers, develop technical narratives, and help define patterns that accelerate delivery while meeting standards.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of related experience in software engineering or IT leadership within financial services.
• Experience designing cloud-native apps and APIs on Azure platform.
• Strong proficiency in .NET, Python, JavaScript (React), SQL, and ETL.
• Regulatory and compliance awareness relevant to Lending/Loans operations.

Responsibilities

• Provide SME expertise across domains to deliver safe, secure, compliant, and reliable solutions for Lending and Omni Service Fabric platforms.
• Lead and mentor engineers; review designs and delivery plans for performance and compliance.
• Design, build, and maintain enterprise APIs with Azure API Management, ensuring security and lifecycle management.
• Collaborate with architecture, product, and business stakeholders to align solutions with strategy.

Skills

Cloud native design

API design

Technical leadership

Azure platform

Data integration

JavaScript (React)

Python

SQL

ETL

Regulatory awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Masters or MBA

Tools

Azure API Management

Job description

What You'll Do

As a Principal Engineer I, you'll provide SME expertise in your respective domain as well as adjacent domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant and reliable. You'll identify development and support needs as well as take on large and complex design responsibilities supporting project tasks. You'll also engage with project and business sponsors refining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions. As a Principal Engineer I, you also facilitate dialogue and activities, and work to ensure team collaboration, including teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for IT audiences. In this role, you'll also develop the technical skills of one more junior engineer.

Job Title

AI Forward Principal Engineer I

Location

Block 23

What You'll Do

As a Principal Engineer I, you'll provide SME expertise in your respective domain as well as adjacent domains to ensure solutions are safe, secure, compliant and reliable. You'll identify development and support needs as well as take on large and complex design responsibilities supporting project tasks. You'll also engage with project and business sponsors refining requirements and objectives of targeted solutions. As a Principal Engineer I, you also facilitate dialogue and activities, and work to ensure team collaboration, including teams outside of your domain. You'll develop effective presentations and narratives for IT audiences. In this role, you will partner closely with architecture, product, and business stakeholders to define solution strategies that support Lending/Omni Service Fabric (LSF/OSF) platform objectives. You will champion AI forward engineering practices, guide teams through complex technical decisions, and establish patterns that accelerate delivery while maintaining WAB engineering standards. You will also develop clear technical narratives and presentations for both executive and

• Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible.
• Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs prevail which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives.
• Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank which can feed operational results of our business partners.
• Work independently or sometimes with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper ongoing reference of the given solution, including physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models while enforcing standards, as well as assisting in the modification or buildout of procedures that support areas of operations across IT.
• Provide senior‑level technical leadership for Lending and Loan Operations initiatives, contributing to solution architecture and engineering decisions aligned to business and regulatory requirements.
• Design, build, and maintain enterprise APIs using Azure API Management (APIM), ensuring consistent security, versioning, throttling, observability, and lifecycle management.
• Own assigned portions of end‑to‑end technical solution design, producing clear and executable designs that can be delivered by engineering teams while adhering to WAB architecture standards and reuse of enterprise capabilities.
• Review technical designs, code, and delivery plans developed by engineers to ensure solutions meet performance, resilience, and compliance expectations.
• Partner with business, architecture, security, and risk teams to translate Lending and Loan Ops requirements into compliant technical solutions, communicating effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers and promote adoption of AI forward, cloud first, and platform driven engineering practices within the Lending and Loan Operations technology teams.
• Lead Platform Ops team to support Lending and Loan Ops incidents, change requests, business-as-usual activities, BCDR and compliances

What You’ll Need

• 8+ years of related experience in software engineering, IT support or IT development, with demonstrated experience supporting Lending, Loans, Credit Admin, or Financial Services platforms.
• Hands on experience designing and developing cloud native applications on the Azure platform, including APIs, data integrations, and full stack solutions.
• Strong experience with .NET, Python, modern JavaScript frameworks (React preferred), SQL, and ETL technologies.
• Bachelor's degree in related field required; Masters or MBA in related field preferred.
• Previous technical leadership or lead engineer experience preferred.
• Advanced to expert knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking is preferred.
• Advanced knowledge of Financial Services or Banking, with exposure to Lending or Loan Operations, is strongly preferred.
• Working knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards and practices.
• Advanced to expert experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously with an established expertise in one or more key domains of the bank (Loans, Operations, Credit or Reporting) with the ability to walk-through top-level process design.
• Capable of working with regulatory partners like the CFPB, OCC and FRB through audits and collaboration efforts as situations arise.
• Advanced to expert familiarity with the capability model across IT and the applications and infrastructures available for engagement in solutioning across the bank to develop results that leverage existing capabilities in addition to implementing new solutions when required.
• Experience in the design, enhancement and compliance to all governance frameworks across the IT organization to ensure proper compliance with published procedures and standards.
• Advanced speaking and writing communication skills.

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 manage their finances, giving you invaluable hands‑on experience to help grow your career!

About The Company

Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation. Serving clients nationwide, Western Alliance Bank includes six legacy bank brands — Alliance Association Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank and Torrey Pines Bank — that remain part of the company’s heritage, as well as AmeriHome Mortgage, a Western Alliance Bank Company.

Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment and will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, nation origin, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information. Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process and/or need an alternative method of applying, please email [e-mail] or call 602-386-2488. When contacting us, please provide your contact information and state the nature of your accessibility issue. We will only respond to inquiries concerning requests that involve a reasonable accommodation in the application process.