This is a Lead Software Engineering position at the Vice President level, which is part of the job family responsible for developing and maintaining software solutions that support business needs.
About the role
We are seeking a senior, hands-on Full Stack Engineer with a strong backend Java focus to join IBD & GCM Technology, part of the wider Institutional Securities Technology (IST) Division. The team supports the complex and evolving needs of two of the firm's most prestigious and market-leading businesses, Investment Banking and Global Capital Markets.
This role combines deep technical expertise with people leadership. You will lead a group of engineers, set technical direction for your area, and act as a primary technology partner to the business. You'll work directly with business stakeholders and product owners to understand their workflows, identify pain points, and translate business needs into pragmatic solutions that deliver measurable value.
This is not a role where seniority means stepping away from code. You will design, build, and own core components across the stack, from Java services and APIs through to the user interface, while mentoring engineers and helping the team make sound architectural decisions. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable discussing strategy and trade-offs with senior stakeholders, reviewing implementation details with developers, and owning delivery from concept through production.
What you'll do in the role:
- Lead, manage, and develop a group of engineers, setting priorities, providing technical mentorship, and fostering a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement.
- Act as the primary technology partner to business stakeholders in IBD and GCM: gather requirements, shape priorities, and lead initiatives from concept through delivery.
- Lead the architectural design and modernization of defined components within our ecosystem, and drive analysis and design for initiatives that span multiple teams and systems.
- Act as a hands-on engineer, personally tackling the most challenging problems and building scalable, resilient backend services in Java alongside modern web front ends.
- Communicate regularly with product leads across the technology organization and discuss opportunities for improvement to existing and future technology solutions.
- Promote engineering best practices, including code quality, automated testing, and CI/CD, and help drive their continued evolution across the team.
- Own the stability of production systems, lead the resolution of complex incidents, and communicate clearly with business users during critical events.
- Actively use AI tooling to accelerate the software development lifecycle while applying strong engineering judgment and oversight. What you'll bring to the role
- At least 10 years' relevant experience designing, building, and operating enterprise-scale applications.
- Strong hands-on Java engineering skills, including Spring Boot, concurrent programming, RESTful API design, and automated testing.
- Full stack experience, including building modern web applications with JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks such as React or Angular.
- Proven experience managing or leading engineers, including setting direction, mentoring, and growing talent.
- A track record of working directly with business stakeholders, gathering requirements, influencing strategy, and translating business needs into technical solutions.
- Strong system design and architecture skills, with a firm grasp of enterprise architecture patterns and experience building resilient, fault-tolerant, and well-tested applications.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to adapt between business users, senior management, and detailed engineering discussions.
- Strong relational database and SQL skills, and solid Linux fundamentals.
- A genuine interest in understanding the business domain, not just the technology.
What you'll bring to the role:
- Knowledge of Investment Banking and Capital Markets workflows and products (advantageous but not required).
- Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging systems such as Kafka/MQ.
- Understanding of cloud-based platforms and distributed systems.
- Understanding of authentication and authorization frameworks.
- Experience with modern Java (21+) and GitHub.
- Experience integrating AI-assisted development tools, such as Claude Code or Amp, into a real engineering workflow.
- Willingness to learn additional languages (e.g., Python) as business needs require.
Who Thrives Here
- A leader who enjoys building and developing teams while remaining deeply hands-on and close to the code.
- Someone with strong technical instincts who is comfortable owning ambiguous, complex problems from conception through production.
- A clear communicator who builds strong, trusted partnerships with business users, senior technology leaders, and engineers at all levels.
- A collaborator who can influence outcomes, challenge assumptions constructively, and build alignment across teams.
- Someone with genuine curiosity about the IBD and GCM businesses and the ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes.
- Work in an open environment where everyone can express their views and make significant contributions.
Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $155,000 and $215,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs.
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