Principal Engineer I

westernalliancebank; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Western Alliance Bank is seeking a Principal Engineer I in Phoenix to act as a SME across multiple domains, support Common Services, and oversee critical applications to maintain security, reliability, and on-time delivery. You will partner with business stakeholders and product owners to translate needs into technical solutions, design and build reusable platform components, and guide junior engineers.

The role emphasizes cloud-native design (Azure preferred), complex deployments, risk

Qualifications

• 8+ years of related experience including enterprise engineering supporting mission-critical banking platforms, integration technologies, cloud services, automation, and regulatory-compliant technology operations.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field required; Master's degree or MBA preferred.
• 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 ba

Responsibilities

• Act as SME in multiple functional areas/domains on system processes and data structures.
• Support Common Services teams and deliver complex projects to maintain security posture on time and on budget.
• Design, build, and deliver solutions and enhancements to existing products and services in Common Services portfolio.
• Develop technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams, enabling effective decision-making and removing delivery impediments.
• Lead and coordinate complex production deployments, release activities, and cutover implementations.

Job description

Job Title:

Principal Engineer I

Location:

Block 23

What you'll do:

As a Principal Engineer I, within the Enterprise Application Services (EAS) department, you'll serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in multiple functional areas/domains on system processes and data structures that support multiple technology disciplines. In this role you'll support the Common Services teams and deliver complex projects in designated domain(s) or functional area(s) to maintain the security posture on time and on budget. This role is technically responsible for oversight of ~10 key applications including BMC Control M job scheduler, File Exchange/Account Extract, Cleo Harmony SFTP, Babel Messaging-Email Services, Twilio-SendGrid platform, ELK Application Logging and Reporting Platform, and Event Management. This is a key role which helps the bank deliver about 50% of total production customer reconciliation, statements, and reporting in a high-pressure environment. You'll partner closely with business stakeholders and product owners, including partners across business segments to understand evolving business needs and translate them into technical solutions. A core expectation is to develop deep expertise in each platform's product capabilities and to design, build, and deliver solutions and enhancements to existing products and services in Common Services portfolio. Through this engagement, you'll help ensure that platform roadmaps, enhancements, and day-to-day delivery remain tightly aligned with stakeholder priorities and the bank's operational and compliance objectives. 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. 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.

Serve as the technology leader for foundational banking services supporting mission-critical money movement processes, ensuring platform reliability, scalability, security, and operational readiness.

Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering teams, enabling effective decision-making, removing delivery impediments, and ensuring adherence to engineering standards, security requirements, and enterprise architecture principles.

Lead and coordinate complex production deployments, release activities, and cutover implementations, delivering seamless go-live executions with minimal risk and no disruption to business operations or customer services.

Ensure adequate risk management and security processes/controls are established and maintained in alignment with the risk appetite for the Bank, as well as applicable regulatory and enterprise risk management expectations.

Implement safety procedures and data recovery plans. Develop user manuals, as well as policies, procedures, and safety protocols.

Design and implement cloud-native solutions (preferably Azure) to migrate, replace, and enhance existing applications.

Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues related to Azure Functions, serverless integrations, and cloud infrastructure.

What you'll need:

8+ years of related experience including enterprise engineering supporting mission-critical banking platforms, integration technologies, cloud services, automation, and regulatory-compliant technology operations.

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field required; Master's degree or MBA preferred.

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 ba