Technical Lead - Application & Platform Engineering

Steward Partners; Florham Park (NJ); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Steward Partners Global Advisory in Florham Park, NJ seeks a Technical Lead – Application & Platform Engineering to architect, develop, and optimize advisor and client facing applications. You will lead an engineering function with a focus on performance, security, and scalable integrations in regulated environments.

The role requires hands-on capability, architectural vision, and leadership experience across modernization, AI-enabled integrations, and cloud-native platforms.

Qualifications

• API design and SaaS orchestration with custodians, data providers, and financial services SaaS platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end engineering for advisor and client platforms, emphasizing performance, scalability, and security standards.
• Design AI-enabled integrations including AI connectors, MCP servers, and governed APIs for LLMs and AI agents.
• Champion AI-assisted development and code-generation agents within the SDLC while preserving quality and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Define standards for API governance, authentication, observability, and lifecycle management.
• Oversee SDLC within Agile frameworks, driving high-velocity delivery.
• Advance CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and cloud-native deployment (containers, ARM, GitHub Actions).
• Mentor engineers across backend/frontend/DevOps/QA and align with business, product, operations, and compliance.

Skills

API design

AI integrations

Code generation tools

Cloud engineering

IAM/OAuth

SQL/NoSQL

Observability

AI security

Leadership

Agile delivery

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Claude Code

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Bicep

OpenTelemetry

App Insights

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.