About Vanguard
More than 50 years ago, John C. Bogle had a vision to start an investment company that did things differently. A company with no external shareholders. Where all the profits were invested back into the business and used to lower costs. Evidently, it was as bold as it was brilliant. To this day, Vanguard Group still has no external shareholders. That means no share prices to protect, and no profits to generate for outside owners.
Today, Vanguard is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, serving more than 50 million investors worldwide. For more than 25 years Vanguard Australia has been supporting individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members to achieve their long-term financial goals.
Our Team & Opportunity
This is a permanent Application Engineer role within the AU Reference Team in the EIS Data Division of GIFS Australia.
The AU Reference Team plays a critical role in a global modernization program, delivering strategic reference data capabilities that support the retirement of a key vendor platform by 2030. This transformation is expected to deliver approximately $61 million in 10-year NPV while improving the scalability, resilience, and efficiency of Vanguard's reference data ecosystem.
What you will do
As a Senior Application Engineer, you will leverage strong software engineering expertise, cloud technologies, and engineering best practices to deliver scalable, resilient, and high-quality solutions. Working closely with the Tech Lead, Product Manager, and key stakeholders, you will play a critical role in delivering roadmap capabilities and enhancing platform reliability, resilience, and operational excellence.
You will contribute to solution design, resolve complex technical challenges, and champion engineering excellence across the team. You will drive iterative delivery through Agile practices, continuously improve development processes, and adapt quickly to evolving business needs and priorities.
You will also mentor engineers through code reviews, technical guidance, and knowledge sharing, fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and innovation. Strong communication and stakeholder management skills will be essential to delivering successful outcomes in a global environment.
This role is a key investment in strengthening the team's technical capability, accelerating roadmap delivery, and delivering long-term business value.
Core Responsibilities
1. Provides senior level system analysis, design, development, and implementation of applications and databases. Integrates third party products.
2. Translates technical specifications into code for complex new or enhancement projects for internal clients. Writes programs, develops code, tests artifacts, and produces reports. Employs software development techniques to ensure tests are implemented in a way that support automation.
3. Elevates code into the development, test, and production environments on schedule. Provides follow up production support. Submits change control requests and documents.
4. Thoroughly understands software development methodology. Thoroughly understands development architecture standards. Trains and mentors staff with less experience. Resolves elevated issues.
5. Participates in design, code, and test inspections throughout the life cycle to identify issues. Explains technical considerations at related meetings, including those with internal clients. Performs systems analysis activities.
6. Thoroughly understands client business functions and technology needs. Has a broad understanding of Vanguard's technologies, tools, and applications, including those that interface with business area and systems.
7. Interfaces with cross functional team members and communicates systems issues at the appropriate technical level for each audience.
8. Thoroughly understands and complies with Information Technology and Information Security policies and procedures and verifies that deliverables meet requirements.
9. Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.
Qualifications
1. Minimum of five years related work experience, with at least three years of development experience.
2. Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience. Graduate degree preferred.
3. Strong hands-on experience across modern cloud-native technologies and software development practices, including:
- Backend: Python 3.x, Golang, REST APIs (GraphQL, gRPC), AWS (Lambda, SQS, SNS, RDS, EC2, API Gateway, Glue, Athena, CloudFormation)
- Identity & Security: Okta, authentication and authorization patterns
- Test Automation: Pytest, Behave, Playwright, TDD/BDD
- CI/CD & DevOps: Git, GitHub, GitHub Actions, SonarQube
- SiteReliability Engineering: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch
- AI-Assisted Engineering: GitHub Copilot, Claude, Gen AI & LLMs
4. Proven experience partnering effectively with Product Owners, Technical Leads, business stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to deliver global solutions.
5. Experience in Agile/Scrum delivery using Jira and Confluence, demonstrating adaptability, iterative delivery, continuous improvement, and the ability to respond effectively to changing priorities.
6. Proven experience mentoring engineers, conducting code reviews, and promoting engineering best practices.
7. Expertise in test automation and TDD/BDD practices, with a proven track record of defining testing strategies, driving quality engineering standards, and implementing comprehensive test coverage across unit, integration, contract, API, and end-to-end testing.
8. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues.
9. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across geographically distributed teams.
10. Knowledge of Investment Management and AI/ML would be an added advantage.
Inclusion Statement
Vanguard’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”
We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard’s core purpose through our values.
When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard’s core purpose.
Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.
How We Work
Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.
