Global Lead – Electronic Trading, Platform as a Service (Executive Director)

Morgan Stanley; New York (NY); On-site; USD 195,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Morgan Stanley is seeking a senior platform architect to lead the rollout of a platform-as-a-service model for a large, distributed, high‑availability trading environment. You will work with global teams to implement cloud-native patterns, Kubernetes infrastructure, Kafka messaging, and a modern observability stack including OTEL, Grafana, and Tempo.

Responsibilities include collaborating with application teams, reviewing architectures for drift, and enabling end-to-end testing across trading

Qualifications

• Profound understanding of containerization technology and Kubernetes infrastructure.
• Experience in leading and reviewing work of Devops and python engineers.
• Deep understanding of Kafka and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience in modern observability stack and authentication (OIDC, MTLS).
• Experience building and deploying distributed and multi-tenant systems.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Application teams and tech leads to understand requirements.
• Work with teams to adopt best practices for cloud-native design.
• Review architecture to identify drift and noncompliance to standards.
• Design end-to-end testing for trading workflows and platforms.
• Integrate Agentic AI and automation to onboard apps on platform.
• Support production with debugging observability, Kubernetes, Kafka, and DB interactions.
• Drive capacity, scaling, and hygiene across infrastructure components.
• Collaborate across squads to meet delivery timelines.

Skills

Kubernetes

Kafka

Observability

Authentication

Distributed systems

Tools

Kubernetes

Kafka

Grafana

Tempo

OIDC

mtls

Job description

The Polaris program aims to provide holistic architectural strategy for the post trade and realtime risk/monitoring electronic trading plant, as well as standardizing the integration between the critical low-latency trading path and post execution plant. It represents the north-star Front-to-Back architecture optimizing for scalability, resiliency, recoverability, manageability, simplicity, performance, time-to-market, and cost. The team implements, manages and operates modern platform as a service for High Availability and Resiliency, modern Observability, Configuration, Orchestration, Authentication, and Logging.

We are looking for a self-driven and hands‑on senior leader for implementing platform-as-a-service model in a large, distributed environment for critical business applications. The ideal candidate will possess a profound technical and architectural understanding of cloud-native application design, Kubernetes infrastructure, Kafka Messaging system and configuration and Modern Observability stack including OTEL, Grafana, Tempo. This role requires the ability to work collaboratively with global teams and squads implementing various parts of the platform and implement strategy of providing holistic platform-as-a-service to use them in production setting.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Application teams and tech leads in understanding cases and requirements
• Work with the application development, infrastructure and platform squads to adopt the best practices for designing cloud-native applications
• Review and participate in architecture for the Apps and the platform to identify drift and non compliance to standards
• Understand various trading flows and business workflows to design and implement end‑to‑end testing needs
• Integrate Agentic AI and automation tools to streamline onboarding of Apps on platform
• Partnering with Production support, debug and resolve any operational issues, in full‑stack, related to observability, Kubernetes on‑prem or public cloud, Kafka configuration, interaction of app with caching, streaming and DB layers.
• Drive capacity, scaling and hygiene requirements across all infrastructure components for the Apps
• Closely collaborate with other squads across the fleet keeping user's requirements and delivery timelines in mind

Minimum Qualifications

• Profound understanding of containerization technology and Kubernetes infrastructure
• Experience working across multiple diverse technology and production teams
• Experience in leading and reviewing work of Devops and python engineers
• Knowledge of infrastructure: TLS and Certificates, scheduling, CI/CD tooling (Jenkins, Github Actions), Application and dependency Management.
• Deep understanding of Kafka
• Hands‑on experience in modern observability stack and modern authentication like oidc, mtls
• Experience building and deploying distributed and multi‑tenant systems
• Experience in troubleshooting and debugging distributed production systems and code

Desired (nice-to-have) Qualifications

• Advanced Python Development
• Knowledge of Flink is a plus
• Java Development
• Knowledge of modern storage and database technologies (MongoDB, MemSql, Snowflake, GPFS)
• Knowledge of Electronic trading (equities, options, swaps) and trade lifecycle is a plus

What You Can Expect From Morgan Stanley

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work‑life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser.

Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $195,000 and $275,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long‑term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.