Software engineering Director 3 (Core Banking Platforms)
At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.
Job Description
The Head of Core Banking Platforms – Hogan & Zafin is responsible for the strategy, delivery, and operational excellence of the bank’s core Hogan deposit platform and Zafin product/pricing platform. These systems form the backbone of the bank’s deposit, product, pricing, and customer account ecosystem, supporting millions of accounts and high-volume transactions 24/7. The role demands enterprise-scale leadership, ensuring always-on platform performance and data integrity, while spearheading large-scale modernization and transformation initiatives (such as API enablement, event-driven architecture, and mainframe optimization). This leader will drive a strong risk and control discipline and talent development agenda, engaging across business and technology to shape the future of core banking platforms.
Responsibilities:
Platform Strategy & Ownership: Provide end-to-end strategic leadership and accountability for the Hogan core banking and Zafin pricing platforms, covering deposit processing, customer master data, rates, fees, billing, and rewards.
Operational Resilience: Ensure 24x7 platform stability, resiliency, security, and data integrity across real-time, batch, and event-driven processing environments. Oversee rigorous incident management, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement to meet or exceed SLA and uptime targets.
Modernization & Innovation: Drive core platform modernization efforts (e.g., API enablement, event streaming integration, mainframe optimization) to improve agility and scalability while maintaining seamless service for customers.
Leadership & Team Development: Lead, mentor, and transform a global engineering organization (~150–200 engineers and partner resources), fostering a high-performance culture of accountability, inclusion, and engineering excellence.
Stakeholder & Cross-Functional Engagement: Partner closely with Product, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Finance, and Audit teams to align platform capabilities with business goals. Ensure strong risk management and regulatory compliance, and serve as a key escalation point during high-impact platform issues.
Vendor & Financial Management: Manage third-party vendor relationships (e.g., core system providers), negotiate contracts and commercial outcomes, and oversee budget and resource allocation, balancing “run” operations with strategic “change” investments.
Executive Communication: Regularly report on platform health, performance, and risk to senior leadership and governance forums. Articulate technology strategy, key risks, and mitigation plans in clear business terms for executive and board-level audiences.
Basic Skills
- Bachelor's degree, or equivalent work experience
- 12 or more years of relevant software engineering experience
- Eight or more years of experience leading multiple software engineering teams
Preferred Skills
Extensive Leadership Experience in technology, with 10+ years in financial services leading large-scale, mission-critical platforms. Proven success managing large global engineering teams (100+ staff) and operating at an executive (SVP/Director) level.
Core Banking Expertise: Deep knowledge of core banking systems (deposits, pricing, rates, fees) and high-volume transaction processing. Experience with Hogan mainframe-based cores and Zafin or similar Tier-1 banking platforms strongly preferred.
Operational & Risk Excellence: Demonstrated ability to ensure 24x7 system availability and operational rigor in highly regulated environments. Adept at incident response, root-cause analysis, and risk management, with a strong track record of meeting compliance and audit standards.
Strategic Modernization: Proven track record of driving multi-year, enterprise-scale modernization or transformation initiatives (e.g., API adoption, event streaming integration, cloud enablement) while balancing strategic vision with hands-on execution.
Financial & Governance Acumen: Experience managing large technology budgets and complex portfolios, making disciplined decisions on investment prioritization. Comfortable engaging in formal governance, steering committees, and financial reviews to justify and optimize platform investments.
People & Culture Leadership: Exceptional people leadership skills – able to develop senior engineering leaders, build a culture of accountability and innovation, and ensure leadership continuity through succession planning and talent development.
Cross-Functional Influence: Highly effective at influencing and collaborating across product, operations, finance, risk, and vendor partners. Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts in clear, business-oriented language to executive and non-technical audiences.
If there’s anything we can do to accommodate a disability during any portion of the application or hiring process, please refer to our disability accommodations for applicants.
Benefits:
Our approach to benefits and total rewards considers our team members’ whole selves and what may be needed to thrive in and outside work. That's why our benefits are designed to help you and your family boost your health, protect your financial security and give you peace of mind. Our benefits include the following:
Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
Basic term and optional term life insurance
Short-term and long-term disability
Pregnancy disability and parental leave
401(k) and employer-funded retirement plan
Paid vacation (from two to five weeks depending on salary grade and tenure)
Up to 11 paid holiday opportunities
Adoption assistance
Sick and Safe Leave accruals of one hour for every 30 worked, up to 80 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law
Review our full benefits available by employment status here.
U.S. Bank is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status, and other factors protected under applicable law.
E-Verify
U.S. Bank participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program in all facilities located in the United States and certain U.S. territories. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.
The salary range reflects figures based on the primary location, which is listed first. The actual range for the role may differ based on the location of the role. In addition to salary, U.S. Bank offers a comprehensive benefits package, including incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase 401(k) contribution and pension (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Pay Range: $186,150.00 - $219,000.00U.S. Bank will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment. U.S. Bank conducts background checks consistent with applicable local laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act as well as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. U.S. Bank is subject to, and conducts background checks consistent with the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA). In addition, certain positions may also be subject to the requirements of FINRA, NMLS registration, Reg Z, Reg G, OFAC, the NFA, the FCPA, the Bank Secrecy Act, the SAFE Act, and/or federal guidelines applicable to an agreement, such as those related to ethics, safety, or operational procedures.
Applicants must be able to comply with U.S. Bank policies and procedures including the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and related workplace conduct and safety policies.
Posting may be closed earlier due to high volume of applicants.