Java Engineering Lead - Senior Vice President

Job description

**Role Overview** Our FX Technology platform underpins the world’s largest Markets FX business, operating continuously 24/7 across more than 87 countries globally. The stability, scalability, and evolution of this platform are critical to the firm’s clients, markets, and reputation. We are undertaking a once-in-a-generation re-engineering of the FX Trade Services platform, creating a highly resilient, always-on, and globally scalable platform designed to support the business over the next 15+ years. A core pillar of this transformation is the adoption of an Agentic AI Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) — a cutting-edge, persona-driven engineering model. This approach fundamentally changes how software is designed, built, tested, and supported. We are seeking a visionary, hands-on engineering leader, and AI evangelist to lead this transformation. The successful candidate will champion and operationalise an AI-first engineering culture, making the Agentic SDLC a core strategic capability and the primary driver of delivery, quality, and innovation. You will lead a 35+ global engineering group and play a defining role in shaping the future of engineering within FX Technology. **Engineering Leadership & Ownership** - Lead the FX Trade Services re-engineering programme to deliver a fully resilient (RTO=0, RPO=0), highly available (24/7, 99.999%), horizontally scalable platform. - Own and drive the adoption of an AI-first engineering strategy, embedding AI-assisted and agentic development practices across the end-to-end SDLC. - Champion and evolve the Agentic AI SDLC, ensuring persona-driven development becomes the default operating model. - Define and continuously raise engineering standards across architecture, development, testing, deployment, and operational support—leveraging AI to enhance consistency, productivity, and quality. - Drive the design of scalable, resilient system architectures in partnership with business stakeholders. - Prepare and present updates to senior technology and business leadership, including progress on AI maturity and adoption. **Agentic AI & SDLC Transformation (Core Priority)** - Establish and scale a persona-based SDLC, where engineering roles (e.g., developers, analysts, reviewers, support authors) are represented as AI-enabled personas. - Ensure persona definitions (behaviour, skills, standards, workflows, templates) are well-governed, version-controlled, and continuously improved. - Drive the systematic integration of AI tools and agents into all phases of the SDLC, including: - Requirements analysis and functional specification - Software design and architecture - Code generation and review - Testing, validation, and QA - Documentation and support readiness - Lead the organisation in measuring and optimising AI-assisted productivity, quality, and cycle time improvements. - Foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and innovation in AI-driven engineering practices. - Partner with enterprise AI and platform teams to align with broader strategy and leverage shared capabilities. - Act as a visible AI evangelist, influencing stakeholders across technology and business to embrace agentic ways of working. **Application Development & Core Engineering** - Lead multiple re-engineering squads responsible for rebuilding the core FX trade management platform. - Own and evolve shared engineering components and platform capabilities. - Ensure systems are designed for operability, performance, and global availability. - Balance delivery speed with platform stability, resilience, and regulatory compliance. - Embed AI-enabled development practices into day-to-day engineering workflows. **People, Culture & AI Adoption** - Build and lead a high-performing, globally distributed engineering organisation, including a strategic presence in India. - Upskill engineering teams in AI-assisted development and persona-driven workflows, ensuring broad adoption and proficiency. - Create a culture that embraces: - Curiosity and experimentation - Continuous learning (particularly in AI and emerging tooling) - Accountability and engineering excellence - Attract and develop engineers who are adaptable, forward-thinking, and excited by AI-driven transformation. - Empower teams to challenge traditional SDLC approaches and continuously improve the Agentic model. **Risk, Control & Production Excellence** - Ensure AI-driven and traditional engineering practices meet the governance, audit, and control requirements of a global regulated business. - Define safe, explainable, and controlled use of AI in software development, including guardrails and auditability. - Maintain robust production management practices, including incident management and continuous improvement. - Own disaster recovery and resilience strategies across critical applications. - Proactively manage technology and operational risk, including risks introduced by AI adoption. **Leadership & Communication** - Act as a visible and credible senior engineering leader within FX Trade Services and across FX Technology. - Advocate for AI-first engineering at leadership forums, clearly articulating value, risks, and progress. - Communicate a compelling vision for the Agentic SDLC transformation and inspire teams to adopt it. - Role-model ethical behaviour, accountability, and sound judgement in all decisions. **What We’re Looking For** - A senior engineering leader capable of re-engineering complex, business-critical platforms at scale. - A strong belief in and passion for AI-first software engineering, with the ability to translate emerging concepts into practical execution. - Proven ability to lead large-scale engineering transformations, even where the target state is evolving or not fully defined. - Experience introducing or scaling modern SDLC practices (e.g., platform engineering, DevOps, automation, AI-assisted development). - Strong engineering fundamentals and architectural jud