Job ID: JOB_ID_977
Role Overview
The Data Platform Engineering Strategy Lead is a high-impact leadership position designed to spearhead the modernization and scaling of enterprise data platforms within the Payments and Transaction Banking sector. This role is critical for a major financial institution in New York City, operating on a hybrid model. The successful candidate will bridge the gap between high-level platform architecture strategy and hands-on engineering oversight, ensuring that data platforms can support high-volume, low-latency payments use cases such as clearing, settlement, and liquidity management. The position focuses on cloud-native data platforms, AI/ML enablement, and governance-aligned delivery in a highly regulated, large-scale banking environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Data Platform Strategy & Architecture: You will define and own a multi-year data platform engineering roadmap. This involves aligning technical capabilities with the strategic priorities of Payments and Transaction Banking, including real-time payments, ACH, and SWIFT protocols. You will establish cloud-native and lakehouse-style reference architectures that balance immediate delivery needs with long-term cost efficiency and modernization goals.
- Payments Data Modernization: A core part of this role is leading the transition from legacy data warehouses to scalable, cloud-ready platforms. You will enable ISO 20022-aligned data models and standardized integration patterns for both batch and streaming data. This ensures high-quality data for risk, finance, and regulatory reporting.
- AI/ML Enablement: You will assess and adopt emerging technologies like distributed query engines and open table formats. You will also evaluate AI/ML use cases for payments, such as anomaly detection and fraud signaling, while defining MLOps patterns for secure integration into enterprise platforms.
- Governance and Compliance: Operating in a highly regulated environment, you will ensure all platform designs align with enterprise data governance, metadata, and lineage standards. You will embed regulatory considerations like data privacy and auditability into the very fabric of the solutions.
- Stakeholder Engagement: You will act as a trusted advisor to business leaders and technology teams, driving data literacy and engineering standards across the organization.
Technical Environment
The environment is heavily focused on cloud-native technologies, distributed systems, and high-performance data processing. Experience with lakehouse architectures (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake), streaming frameworks (e.g., Kafka, Flink), and modern data governance tools is essential. Knowledge of the payments domain, specifically clearing and settlement systems, is a significant advantage. The role requires a deep understanding of how to translate architecture principles into pragmatic, implementable guidance for engineering and delivery teams.
Qualifications
Candidates should possess extensive experience in data engineering leadership, specifically within the financial services industry. A deep understanding of cloud architecture, data modeling for transactional systems, and the ability to lead complex, multi-year technical roadmaps is required. Strong communication skills are vital for influencing platform investment decisions and articulating technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders. You should have a proven track record of industrializing validated solutions into reusable accelerators and templates.
Special Requirements
NYC-hybrid, Long-term duration
Compensation & Location
Salary: $195,000 – $275,000 per year (Estimated)
Location: New York, NY
Recruiter / Company – Contact Information
Recruiter / Employer: ICS Global Soft, Inc.
Email: ram@icsglobalsoft.com
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