Investment Systems Application Engineer - IV

Overview

Vanguard Personalized Indexing (VPI) is a rapidly growing business within Financial Advisor Services. We enable financial advisors to deliver tax‑efficient, customized direct indexing portfolios  platform manages thousands of investor accounts and evaluates portfolios daily to support tax‑loss harvesting, customization, and investment research workflows. VPI operates at the intersection of investment management, cloud‑native platforms, and advanced analytics engineering. The technology we build directly supports investment research, portfolio construction, and data‑driven decision‑making that impacts client outcomes.

We are seeking a full‑stack engineer with strong UI specialization to help build the next generation of user interfaces for VPI—supporting portfolio managers, operations teams, and investment workflows. The ideal candidate brings experience building user interfaces for investment or wealth management systems and has a strong understanding of investment workflows and user needs across front, middle, and back office functions.

• UI / Front‑End Engineering

• Design and build modern, responsive user interfaces for investment workflows

• Develop rich, data‑driven applications supporting portfolio analysis and operations

• Create reusable UI components and design patterns

• Full‑Stack Development

• Develop end‑to‑end features spanning UI, APIs, and backend services

• Provides expert level system analysis, design, development, and implementation of investment applications and databases.

• Integrates third party products. Ensures that expected application performance levels are achieved.

• Ensure performance, scalability, and usability across applications

• Product & User Experience

• Partner with business stakeholders (PMs, Ops, Research) to translate requirements into user‑centric designs

• Thoroughly understands client investment business functions and technology needs

• Improve usability and efficiency of workflows replacing legacy/manual processes

• Support iterative development and continuous feedback loops

• Cloud & Engineering Practices

• Build applications deployed on AWS using modern CI/CD practices

• Ensure code quality, testing, and maintainability

• Contribute to architectural discussions and UI platform evolution

• Is well versed on the latest technologies and tools supporting software development in the industry

• SDLC

• Ensures the viability of investment systems IT deliverables. Conducts testing, including functionality, technical limitations, and security.

• Elevates code into the development, test, and production environments on schedule. Provides follow up production support.

• 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.

• Develops broad and deep understanding of Vanguard’s technologies, tools, and applications, including those that interface with business area and systems.

• Complies with Information Technology and Information Security policies and procedures, and verifies that deliverables meet requirements.

Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

• Minimum of eight years related work experience, with at least 5+ years of software engineering experience building investment, wealth management, or financial applications.

• Undergraduate degree in a related field

• Strong front‑end development experience (modern frameworks such as Angular or React)

• Experience building full‑stack applications (Java/Python backend)

• Solid understanding of investment workflows and user personas (portfolio managers, trading operations, research analysts)

• Understanding of API design and integration

• Experience working with cloud‑native systems (AWS preferred)

• Ability to contribute as a individual contributor while guiding design decisions degree or equivalent combination of training and experience.

Vanguard is offering visa sponsorship for this position.

At Vanguard, we don’t just have a mission—we’re on a mission.

To work for the long‑term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product…