Lead Software Engineer

Morgan Stanley; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 115,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Parametric is part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, offering a hybrid work model with three days in the office and remaining days remote or in-office. Lead Software Engineer will own the Performance Reporting engine and modernize legacy systems onto scalable, event-driven AWS cloud-native architecture.

You will partner with business analysts and cross-functional teams to ensure accuracy, latency, and auditability for client reporting and regulatory compliance.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on Software Engineering experience.
• Experience leading and guiding software development teams.
• Experience architecting highly available, distributed, event-driven systems.
• Strong Python expertise including async patterns and performance optimization.
• Cloud-native development on AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, Batch, S3, Athena, Glue).
• Experience with Kafka, PySpark, and data modeling for performance calculations.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead a high-throughput, event-driven performance engine on AWS.
• Drive migration of legacy reporting to cloud-native platform with defined strategy.
• Design scalable distributed systems using Python, Kafka, PySpark, and AWS services.
• Define data models and ensure data quality, latency, and auditability.
• Establish observability, alerts, and runbooks for reliability and compliance.
• Lead Agile-based delivery: sprint planning and backlog refinement.
• Mentor a global team of engineers and collaborate with stakeholders.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Mentoring

Problem-solving

Team collaboration

Learning mindset

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science

Advanced degree a plus

Tools

Python

Apache Kafka

PySpark

AWS

Lambda

Step Functions

Batch

S3

Glue

Athena

DynamoDB

Terraform

Snowflake

Job description

Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in more than 41 countries, the Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.

ABOUT PARAMETRIC

Parametric is part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management division of Morgan Stanley. We partner with advisors, institutions, and consultants to build portfolios focused on what's important to them and their clients. A leader in custom solutions for more than 30 years, we help investors access efficient market exposures, solve implementation challenges, and design multi-asset portfolios that respond to their evolving needs. We also offer systematic alpha and alternative strategies to complement clients' core holdings.

This role is part of Parametric's hybrid working model, which includes working in the office 3 days a week and choosing to work remotely or in the office the remaining days of the week.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Core Operations Platform is designed to build, integrate, and support a unified technology ecosystem that enables efficient, scalable, and controlled execution of Client and Market Operations processes.

It serves as the central backbone for operational workflows, consolidating fragmented systems into a single, orchestrated platform that improves data integrity, reduces manual effort, and enhances operational transparency. This aligns with the broader vision of moving from multi-system, manual processes to a unified, workflow-driven model,

As part of the Core Operations Platform, the Performance Reporting team at Parametric:

• Designs and operates a highly resilient, scalable platform on AWS to deliver performance and reporting data across the firm. The calculation engine aggregates data from multiple sources and teams, computes performance metrics, and applies both technical and business validation before publishing to downstream consumers.
• Applies software and data engineering best practices to aggregate and transform data using event-driven and Serverless AWS technology
• Maintain and plan for migration of existing legacy applications to a modern technology platform.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Lead Software Engineer is responsible for providing technical leadership, project management, process development, training, and support across the Core Operations Platform. At the heart of this role is ownership of the Performance Reporting engine — the system that calculates and delivers portfolio performance metrics across the firm. The Lead Engineer will also drive the modernization of legacy performance calculation systems onto scalable, event-driven, and AWS cloud-native architecture.

The Lead Engineer will partner with business analysts, operations stakeholders, and cross-functional technology teams to ensure the platform meets the accuracy, latency, and traceability standards required for client reporting, regulatory compliance, and investment decision support.

Primary Responsibilites:

Technical Leadership

• Architect and lead development of a high-throughput, event-driven performance calculation engine on AWS, processing large volumes of financial data with accuracy and auditability requirements
• Drive the migration of the legacy performance reporting application stack onto a modern, cloud-native technology platform — defining migration strategy, sequencing, and risk mitigation
• Design scalable distributed systems using Python, Apache Kafka, PySpark, and AWS services (Lambda, Batch, Glue, Athena, S3, DynamoDB)
• Define and enforce data modeling standards, schema design, and data structure patterns appropriate for performance calculation use cases
• Establish observability, alerting, and runbook standards to ensure system reliability and auditability

Delivery & Engineering Practice

• Lead Agile-based delivery: sprint planning, backlog refinement, and iterative delivery cadences
• Provide flexible, pragmatic solutions to complex business problems within firm technology standards and regulatory constraints
• Author and review technical design documents, ADRs (Architecture Decision Records), and runbooks
• Own and enforce code quality standards; conduct code and merge-request reviews
• Build comprehensive test coverage: unit, integration, functional, and performance tests
• Research and evaluate open-source technologies and cloud-native AWS services; drive adoption where justified

People & Stakeholder Leadership

• Mentor and lead a global team of engineers; provide regular feedback, support career development, and foster an inclusive, high-performing engineering culture
• Partner with business analysts and stakeholders to translate complex financial requirements into technical specifications
• Collaborate cross-functionally with architecture, data platform, and infrastructure teams
• Communicate technical trade-offs and roadmap recommendations clearly to senior leadership

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

• 8+ years of hands‑on Software Engineering experience
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, or related field (advanced degree a plus)
• Expert‑level Python — including async patterns, performance optimization, and library ecosystem
• 5+ years of cloud-native development on AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, Batch, S3, Athena, Glue)
• Experience supervising and guiding software development teams and fostering an engaging, collaborative environment.
• Demonstrated experience architecting highly available, distributed, event-driven systems
• Hands‑on experience with Apache Kafka or equivalent streaming/messaging platforms
• Strong experience working with relational databases, SQL, and NoSQL data stores (e.g., DynamoDB)
• Strong data modeling expertise — relational, columnar, key-value, and streaming patterns; ability to reason about trade‑offs under specific performance and latency requirements
• Experience leading legacy system modernization initiatives
• Strong communication skills — ability to work effectively with both technical teams and non‑technical business users
• A constant learning and upskilling mindset
• Fluency in AI/GenAI for engineering productivity (integration strategy, code review, test‑case creation, and code generation), with a strong understanding of the evolving AI landscape and the ability to apply AI technologies effectively in business and technical contexts.
• Experience in Financial Services, particularly portfolio performance calculations, NAV/returns, or risk metrics is a plus
• Experience with PySpark for large‑scale data processing
• Infrastructure-as-Code experience, preferably Terraform
• Experience with Snowflake as an analytical data warehouse
• Microservices architecture and Serverless technologies
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and code quality tooling
• Experience in C# and .NET software development is a plus

Parametric believes that each employee makes a significant contribution to our success. That contribution should not be limited by the assigned responsibilities. Therefore, this job description is designed to outline primary duties and qualifications, but not limit the employee or the organization to just the work identified. It is our expectation that every employee will offer his/her services wherever and whenever necessary to ensure the success of our services.

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.

Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $115,000 and $225,000 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.