Senior Technical Practitioner - Financial Services

Virtasant; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Virtasant in the United States seeks a Senior Technical Practitioner to join a long-term, hands-on engagement with a technology-driven financial services organization. You will act as a peer to experienced engineering teams, shape architecture, identify risks, and solve complex problems.

This role is not a traditional staff-augmentation position; you will provide independent technical judgment, review architectural decisions, and transfer knowledge to the broader organization, mentoring

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience.
• Experience at Staff/Principal/Architect level or equivalent.
• Deep knowledge of financial services platforms and scalable systems.
• Strong problem solving and architectural leadership capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Work with senior engineering and technology stakeholders to solve complex, ambiguous technical problems.
• Shape and review architecture for scalable, secure, and reliable financial systems.
• Design and improve production-critical systems involving payments, transaction processing, ledgers, or related platforms.
• Investigate complex technical issues, identify risks and opportunities, and provide actionable recommendations.
• Participate in architecture and code reviews with experienced engineers and drive initiatives from problem definition through solution.
• Establish engineering best practices around reliability, security, observability, and operational excellence.
• Mentor engineers through hands-on collaboration and technical discussions.

Skills

Senior IC

AWS expertise

Financial services domain

Architecture & design

Tools

AWS

Job description

Senior Technical Practitioner — Financial Services

About the Opportunity

We are looking for a Senior Technical Practitioner to join a long-term engagement with a fast-growing, technology-driven financial services organization.

This is a highly senior, hands-on individual contributor opportunity for someone who can operate as a peer to experienced engineering teams, shape architecture, identify technical risks, and solve complex, ambiguous problems.

This is not a traditional staff-augmentation or ticket-delivery role. You will be expected to bring independent technical judgment, challenge assumptions, review architectural and engineering decisions, and transfer knowledge to the broader organization.

What You'll Do

• Work closely with senior engineering and technology stakeholders to solve complex, ambiguous technical problems.
• Shape and review architecture for highly scalable, secure, and reliable financial systems.
• Design and improve production-critical systems involving payments, transaction processing, banking infrastructure, ledgers, or related financial platforms.
• Investigate complex technical issues beyond surface-level troubleshooting and identify underlying risks and opportunities.
• Challenge technical assumptions and provide clear, actionable recommendations.
• Participate in architecture and code reviews with highly experienced engineers.
• Drive initiatives from problem definition through solution, without requiring detailed task decomposition or constant supervision.
• Help establish engineering best practices around reliability, security, observability, and operational excellence.
• Share expertise and mentor experienced engineers through hands-on collaboration and technical discussions.
• Operate comfortably in an environment where requirements may be evolving and problems are not always clearly defined.

What We're Looking For

• 15+ years of relevant software engineering experience.
• Proven experience operating at Staff, Principal, Architect, or equivalent senior individual-contributor level.
• Strong track record designing, building, and owning complex production systems.
• Deep experience within financial services, such as:
  • Banking systems
  • Payments infrastructure
  • Transaction processing
  • Ledgers and financial data systems
  • Regulated financial infrastructure
  • Other production-critical, high-stakes financial systems
• Strong AWS expertise, particularly in complex production environments.
• Hands-on experience with areas such as:
  • Reliability and resilience
  • Security
  • Observability
  • Infrastructure architecture
  • Operating production workloads in regulated environments
• Ability to independently frame problems, investigate deeply, identify risks, and drive solutions.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work directly with highly experienced technical peers.
• Willingness to constructively challenge existing technical decisions when appropriate.
• Demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge and raise the technical capability of the wider engineering organization.

Particularly Relevant Experience

Experience with any of the following will be highly valuable:

• Cross-border payments
• International remittances
• Multi-currency systems
• Digital banking or fintech platforms
• Financial ledgers
• Payment processing at scale
• Regulated financial services environments
• Experience with regulatory frameworks such as ADGM, DFSA, FCA, EU equivalents, or comparable jurisdictions

What Success Looks Like

The successful candidate is someone who:

• Can take an undefined technical problem and create structure around it.
• Doesn't wait for problems to be fully decomposed before taking action.
• Has the technical depth to challenge decisions made by other senior engineers.
• Can identify risks that may not be immediately obvious.
• Makes pragmatic, technically sound recommendations.
• Has personally owned systems operating at meaningful production scale.
• Can move fluidly between hands-on engineering, architecture, technical review, and mentoring.
• Acts as a trusted technical peer rather than simply an execution resource.

Location & Engagement

• Location: Ideally EMEA
• Engagement: Full-time
• Duration: Long-term
• Working hours: Must have meaningful overlap with Dubai / Gulf Standard Time (UTC+4)
• Relocation: There may be an opportunity or requirement to relocate to Dubai depending on the long-term engagement and mutual fit.

Interview Process

The process is expected to assess both technical depth and senior-level problem solving, including:

• Case-based architecture: Working through an ambiguous real-world technical problem.
• Systems design: Designing systems at scale, particularly around payments, ledgers, transaction processing, or cross-border financial infrastructure.
• AWS deep dive: Reliability, security, observability, and infrastructure decisions in production and regulated environments.
• Senior-level collaboration: Examples of challenging technical decisions, influencing peers, mentoring experienced engineers, and independently driving complex initiatives.