Technical Lead - Application & Platform Engineering

Steward Partners; Florham Park (NJ); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Steward Partners Global Advisory is seeking a Technical Lead for Application & Platform Engineering in Florham Park, NJ. The role focuses on architecting advisor/client facing apps, modernizing platforms, and enabling AI-powered integrations while maintaining strict regulatory standards.

You will lead cross-functional teams across backend, frontend, DevOps, and QA, driving modernization, cloud deployments, and secure data access. Hybrid/remote options are available for the right candidate.

Qualifications

• Senior-level engineering experience in application/platform engineering.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams in regulated environments.
• Experience designing SaaS integrations across financial services.
• Hands-on with AI-enabled integration concepts and MCP servers.
• Strong knowledge of cloud, containers, and CI/CD practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end engineering for advisor and client platforms with security.
• Drive SaaS integration strategy and enterprise-grade API ecosystems.
• Design AI-enabled integrations for LLMs and AI agents with governance.
• Champion AI-assisted development and SDLC tooling for quality.
• Define API governance, authentication, and lifecycle standards.
• Oversee SDLC in Agile, improve CI/CD and cloud deployments.
• Mentor engineers across backend/frontend/DevOps/QA.
• Collaborate with product, operations, compliance to meet regulatory needs.
• Define and track KPIs, reduce technical debt and boost resilience.
• Evaluate new technologies to improve advisor experience and delivery.

Skills

API design

SaaS integrations

AI-enabled integration

Code generation tools

Cloud engineering

Identity & access engineering

SQL/NoSQL

Observability & reliability

Regulated environment compliance

Leadership & mentoring

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Terraform

Bicep

Job description

Steward Partners Global Advisory is an employee-owned, full-service leading independent private financial services firm, with professionals delivering multifaceted financial solutions and comprehensive service to our clients and their families.

Steward Partners Global Advisory caters to family, institutional and multigenerational investors delivering comprehensive wealth planning and investment strategy implementation, professional asset management services, private banking, institutional consulting, international advisory and business solutions. We pride ourselves on delivering wide-ranging client service with an unwavering commitment to excellence.

Position Overview

The Technical Lead - Application & Platform Engineering is a senior engineering leader responsible for architecting, developing, and optimizing advisor and client facing applications and platforms. The ideal candidate brings strong hands-on engineering ability, architectural vision, and leadership experience in regulated environments, application modernization, SaaS integrations, AI-enabling integrations, and user-centric development.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end engineering for advisor and client platforms, emphasizing performance, scalability, and financial industry security standards.
• Lead SaaS integration strategy and enterprise-grade API ecosystems across custodians, market data providers, and third-party financial services applications, standardizing authentication, data synchronization, and lifecycle management.
• Design AI-enabling integrations - including AI connectors, tools, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers - that securely expose platform data and actions to LLMs, AI agents, and agentic workflows under governed, permissioned, and auditable controls.
• Champion AI-assisted development and code generation agents within the SDLC to accelerate delivery, testing, and code review while preserving quality, security, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Define standards for API governance, authentication, observability, and lifecycle management.

SDLC Governance & Engineering Excellence

• Oversee the full SDLC within Agile frameworks, driving quality and high-velocity delivery.
• Advance CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality practices, and cloud-native deployment (containers, ARM templates, GitHub Actions).

Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Alignment

• Mentor engineers across backend, frontend, DevOps, and QA functions, and lead technical decision-making for modernization efforts and new platform capabilities.
• Partner with business, product, operations, and compliance teams to ensure solutions meet regulatory, audit, and data security requirements.
• Define and track engineering KPIs for productivity, reliability, and performance; drive refactoring, technical debt reduction, and platform resilience to support growth.
• Evaluate emerging technologies that improve advisor experience, automation, and digital service delivery.

Required Experience & Skills

Core Technical Skills

• API design, integration patterns, and SaaS orchestration, with hands-on experience integrating custodians, market data providers, and financial services SaaS platforms.
• AI-enabling integration experience — building AI connectors, tools, and MCP servers that expose data and services to LLMs, AI agents, and agentic workflows through secure, governed APIs.
• Code generation agents and AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code), with secure-by-design coding and quality guardrails for AI-generated code.
• Cloud engineering (Azure preferred; AWS a plus), containers (Docker, Kubernetes), IaC (Bicep/Terraform), and CI/CD (Azure DevOps, GitHub).
• Working knowledge of Azure AI Foundry and the Azure AI/OpenAI service ecosystem.
• Identity and access engineering — OAuth 2.0/OIDC, SAML, SSO federation, token exchange, and role/entitlement models for advisor- and client-level data access.
• SQL/NoSQL databases, caching, and event-driven architectures (Kafka, Azure Service Bus)
• Reliability practices — SLOs, observability (OpenTelemetry/App Insights).
• AI security, quality, and safety — guardrails, prompt-injection/data-leakage protection, and evaluation of prompts and agent actions.

Leadership & Delivery

• 10+ years in application/platform engineering with increasing responsibility.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and deliver complex solutions at scale.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage both technical and business stakeholders.

Reports To

Director of Applications

Direct Reports

None

Location

Florham Park, NJ. Flexible across Steward Partners offices; hybrid and remote options are also available for the right candidate.