Principal Software Engineer, VP

Job Overview

Charles River Development, part of State Street Alpha, provides a cloud‑based platform that streamlines and automates investment processes across asset classes. The platform serves both Institutional and Wealth Management clients, with the Wealth Management part offering significant growth potential. The team is responsible for designing and implementing complex wealth and investment management workflows that are used by some of the largest participants in the industry.

The role supports a migration to a highly scalable cloud‑based solution using Azure, React, Kubernetes, Kafka, event‑driven architecture, and micro‑services.

• Drive technical excellence by analyzing, designing, developing, testing, and debugging large and complex software enhancements and solutions within Charles River’s business and technical problem domains.
• Collaborate with Business Analysts and Product Managers to create simple and sustainable software solutions for complex problems.
• Provide thought leadership in the design of product architecture within and beyond the team’s scope of responsibility.
• Direct problem solving for projects or major phases of projects to resolve advanced software technical issues.
• Develop, test, debug, and implement software programs and applications using Java, C#, SQL, JavaScript, or other related languages while staying abreast of emerging technologies.
• Provide informed guidance and critical analysis of proposed changes during code reviews.
• Write unit and automation tests to ensure a high‑quality end product.
• Identify ways of improving development and test methodologies and contribute to related test framework development.
• Conduct manual tests to ensure a high‑quality end product.
• Provide expert‑level troubleshooting on large, mission‑critical client implementations.
• Assist team leaders in the agile software development process by adhering to and advancing the CRD scrum methodology, including daily stand‑ups, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives.
• Plan and coordinate cross‑team activities to complete assignments.
• Advise senior management on technical strategy.
• Provide mentoring to junior and senior staff.

• B.S. degree (or foreign education equivalent) in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical field required; M.S. degree strongly preferred.

• Minimum 10 years of progressively responsible professional software engineering experience.
• Minimum 6 years of experience in financial services developing solutions for Portfolio Management, Trading, Compliance, Post‑Trade, IBOR, or Wealth Management strongly desired.
• Authoritative experience with object‑oriented programming, compilers or interpreters, embedded systems, operating systems, relational databases, scripting, and advanced programming languages.
• Demonstrated problem‑solving abilities involving high‑performance, multi‑tiered database applications.
• Demonstrated ability to design and develop simple software solutions to complex business and technical problems.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work well with peers in a collaborative team environment.
• Minimum of 5 years working with an Agile development methodology.

$110,000 – $185,000 per year (primary location quoted; may differ for other locations).

Employees are eligible to participate in a comprehensive benefits program that includes a retirement savings plan (401K) with company match; insurance coverage such as basic life, medical, dental, vision, long‑term disability, and optional additional coverages; paid time off including vacation, sick leave, short‑term disability, and family care responsibilities; access to an Employee Assistance Program; incentive compensation with eligibility for annual performance‑based awards (excluding certain sales roles subject to sales incentive plans);

and eligibility for certain tax‑advantaged savings plans.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we consider all qualified applicants for all positions without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, age, disability, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, citizenship, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union status, familial status, military and veteran status, and other characteristics protected by applicable law.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.