Director of Engineering

Charles Schwab; Southlake (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Charles Schwab's CES Automation Solutions team seeks a Director of Software Development & Engineering to lead AI-enabled modernization of broker-dealer technology and drive resilient software delivery on site in Texas.

You will establish technical direction, govern best practices, and balance security, auditability, and regulatory considerations while partnering with product, architecture, cybersecurity, risk, compliance, and senior leadership.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in senior engineering, architecture, or technical leadership in complex legacy environments.
• Hands-on experience applying Generative AI to software engineering workflows.
• Experience modernizing regulated, mission-critical systems with reliability, security, auditability, and controlled change.
• Experience designing context-management, knowledge, or retrieval solutions across repositories and stacks.
• Strong software engineering and architecture across modern delivery practices, automation, platform engineering, testing, observability, and production operations.
• Demonstrated ability to translate emerging AI capabilities into practical enterprise solutions with measurable outcomes.
• Demonstrated technical leadership and ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct reporting authority.
• Experience collaborating with distributed or global engineering teams across locations and disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction and scalable engineering practices for AI-enabled software systems.
• Evaluate AI solutions, maintain context across complex systems, and balance security and regulatory considerations.
• Partner with product, architecture, cybersecurity, risk, compliance, operations, and executives to establish standards and guardrails.
• Lead distributed teams and drive adoption of AI capabilities across the organization.
• Improve delivery speed, quality, reliability, and system capacity.
• Guide modernization while balancing technical debt and resilience.

Skills

Senior engineering leadership

Generative AI in software

Legacy modernization

Context management / retrieval

Cross-functional collaboration

Security & compliance

Distributed teams

Effective communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

Your opportunity

At Schwab, you're empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us challenge the status quo and transform the finance industry together. We believe in the importance of in-office collaboration and fully intend for the selected candidate for this role to work on site in the specified location(s).

The CES Automation Solutions team is advancing how software is designed, developed, tested, modernized, and supported by bringing Generative AI into the software development lifecycle. As Director, Software Development & Engineering, you will serve as a senior individual contributor helping shape CES's transition toward AI-enabled and agentic engineering while modernizing critical Broker-Dealer technology.

You will establish technical direction and scalable engineering practices that improve delivery speed, quality, reliability, and capacity. You'll evaluate and implement AI-enabled solutions, develop trusted approaches for maintaining context across complex systems, and guide modernization while balancing resilience, security, auditability, regulatory considerations, and technical debt.

Success requires strong technical leadership, problem solving, decision making, and cross-functional collaboration. You'll partner across product, architecture, cybersecurity, risk, compliance, operations, and senior leadership to establish appropriate standards and guardrails, measure transformation outcomes, influence adoption, and help distributed engineering teams build lasting AI capabilities.

What you have

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience at a senior engineering, architecture, or technical leadership level, or equivalent experience, working with complex legacy technology environments.
• Hands‑on experience applying Generative AI capabilities to software engineering workflows.
• Experience modernizing regulated, mission‑critical systems where reliability, security, auditability, and controlled change are essential.
• Experience designing and implementing context‑management, knowledge, or retrieval solutions across multiple repositories and technology stacks.
• Strong software engineering and architecture experience spanning modern delivery practices, automation, platform engineering, testing, observability, and production operations.
• Demonstrated ability to translate emerging AI capabilities into practical enterprise solutions that produce measurable engineering or business outcomes.
• Demonstrated technical leadership and ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive transformation without direct reporting authority.
• Experience collaborating with distributed or global engineering teams and developing technical capabilities across locations and disciplines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate complex technical topics across engineering, business, risk, and executive audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Broker‑Dealer, financial services, or similarly regulated transaction‑processing platforms.
• Experience with legacy modernization approaches, including application decomposition, strangler architectures, automated code analysis, transformation, and parity validation.
• Experience with enterprise knowledge graphs, retrieval‑augmented generation, embeddings, repository intelligence, or related approaches for grounding AI in trusted organizational context.
• Familiarity with AI evaluation, model risk, Data Governance, privacy, security, responsible AI practices, and human‑in‑the‑loop controls.
• Track record establishing engineering standards, reusable platforms, or transformation programs adopted across multiple teams.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.

In addition to the salary range, this role is eligible for bonus or incentive opportunities.

What’s in it for you

At Schwab, you're empowered to shape your future. We champion your growth through meaningful work, continuous learning, and a culture of trust and collaboration-so you can build the skills to make a lasting impact. Our Hybrid Work and Flexibility approach balances our ongoing commitment to workplace flexibility, serving our clients, and our strong belief in the value of being together in person on a regular basis.

We offer a competitive benefits package that takes care of the whole you – both today and in the future:

• 401(k) with company match and Employee stock purchase plan
• Paid time for vacation, volunteering, and 28‑day sabbatical after every 5 years of service for eligible positions
• Paid parental leave and family building benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• Health, dental, and vision insurance