Vice President - Technical Lead, Document Automation & AI Engineering in London

We’re seeking someone to join our team as a lead document automation, workflow automation and AI-enabled solutions engineer within Equity Derivatives Technology, as part of a globally distributed team. This role combines strong engineering fundamentals, distributed systems experience and practical generative AI to deliver business value through iterative development.

Morgan Stanley's market leading institutional equity derivatives business is powered by a world class technology platform from front to back. Our platform manages the processing of Structured Products and OTC's for the exotic derivatives business. This is a complex business area requiring smart, innovative, and self-sufficient developers to work closely with sales, trading and quants. As the business continues to grow, we are undertaking a programme of change to increase our external connectivity via REST and FIX; as well as a strong focus on improving our pricing tools. We are looking to build out a cloud ready, horizontally scalable pricing system with zero downtime and single click deployment capability. This is an opportunity to get involved in shaping the pricing and workflow strategy and tooling.

Reflecting the global nature of our business and systems, the team is distributed between London, New York, Montreal, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Our strongest location in terms of numbers is London, the ideal time zone for running a global team and where many of our business sponsors are also located. We are active in many out of work activities both socially and volunteering our time through various firm sponsored initiatives.

In the Technology division, we leverage innovation to build the connections and capabilities that power our Firm, enabling our clients and colleagues to redefine markets and shape the future of our communities. This is a Principal Software Engineering position at VP level, which is part of the job family responsible for developing and maintaining software solutions that support business needs.

What will you be doing:

• Lead document/workflow automation and platform modernisation; define scalable architecture for distributed, business-critical systems.
• Drive engineering excellence, quality and operational resilience; mentor engineers through design reviews and hands-on coaching.
• Own end-to-end delivery of strategic initiatives, partnering with business stakeholders to translate requirements into solutions and deliver value via rapid iteration.
• Participate actively in agile ceremonies (stand-ups, planning, retrospectives, showcases) alongside business owners and other agile teams across the global fleet.
• Champion AI-assisted and agentic development, applying generative AI to accelerate delivery and productivity.
• Define governance/guardrails for AI-enabled development; evaluate emerging technologies for practical application.
• Design scalable, event-driven applications, services and REST APIs; improve CI/CD, observability and deployment automation.
• Design with performance, memory efficiency, capacity and reusability in mind, conducting capacity analysis and management while partnering with infrastructure/platform teams to build reusable capabilities.
• Support incident management, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement through automation and monitoring.
• Ensure solutions meet security, regulatory and operational requirements.

You will be a technically proficient and enthusiastic developer, with a desire to work on back-end application development. You will support and lead different phases of the product lifecycle including analysis, development and testing. You will develop new and existing components in Java. Previous commercially proven experience is required, with a strong desire to develop your skills more widely. Additionally, there is an opportunity to work with front end application development in HTML 5, Angular.

You will be a proactive member of an agile development team, focusing on efficient application delivery to meet business KPIs. You will be expected to promote best practices in terms of TDD, development tools and technologies. The role will involve constant interaction with front office business users, analysing and gathering requirements. The role requires good collaboration with members from the wider global team, as well as neighbouring teams and systems such as pricing and trade capture. Equity derivatives product knowledge is not a pre-requisite but it is advantageous.

What you'll bring to the role:

• Extensive hands-on engineering experience in financial services or similarly demanding environments, including complex distributed systems.
• Track record leading technical initiatives while staying hands-on, working directly with business stakeholders and mentoring engineers.
• Experience with iterative delivery practices and performance/memory profiling to diagnose and resolve production issues.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated leadership skills in managing and leading software development teams to deliver high-quality products on time and within budget.
• Strong understanding of software development methodologies, such as Agile, Scrum, and DevOps, with the ability to implement best practices.
• Excellent communication skills to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and executives.
• Proven track record in strategic planning, resource allocation, and project management to drive successful software development initiatives.
• Ability to analyse and assess technical requirements, risks, & constraints to inform decisions and prioritize tasks accordingly.
• Proficient in software development tools & technologies, strong technical background to guide and support team members.
• Strong problem-solving skills to address complex technical challenges and drive innovation within the software engineering team.

Skills required (essential):

• Practical Experience building Java Applications.
• Test-Driven Development (TDD) experience.
• Experience of Agile development techniques and a deep understanding of systems engineering, build and release management principles including continuous integration and continuous delivery.
• Experience with application integration, software design patterns, frameworks, unit testing, automated testing, performance / memory analysis, and n-tier service-oriented architecture.
• Experience in sales and trading platforms or middle office trade processing systems in Equities / FX / Fixed Income / Derivation domain.

What you can expect from Morgan Stanley:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients - helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated - and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents. Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.