Job Description

Job Title:

Principal Engineer II – Microsoft Foundry Engineering

Location:

Block 23

What you'll do:

The Principal Engineer II – Microsoft Foundry Engineering serves as a senior technical leader and Subject Matter Expert (SME) responsible for advancing the Bank's Artificial Intelligence, automation, and digital transformation initiatives through the Microsoft Foundry platform. This role, which is a key technical role within the IT Enterprise Application Services (EAS) organization, provides expertise across AI engineering, platform architecture, security, and enterprise development standards while enabling a federated development model that empowers business and technology value streams to build and deploy AI solutions safely and efficiently. The Principal Engineer II establishes technical standards, best practices, and engineering frameworks to ensure AI-enabled solutions are secure, compliant, scalable, reliable, and aligned with enterprise architecture and regulatory requirements. As a key technical leader, this position partners closely with business stakeholders, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, Risk Management, Data Governance, and delivery teams to define solution strategies and drive the successful implementation of AI-powered applications, agents, copilots, and automation capabilities. The role is responsible for complex solution design, platform administration, engineering oversight, and the operational maturity of Microsoft Foundry services across the enterprise. Additionally, the Principal Engineer II develops technical roadmaps, provides strategic recommendations, facilitates cross-functional collaboration, and communicates technical direction and business value to both executive and technical audiences.

• Lead the engineering strategy, implementation, adoption, and operational management of the Microsoft Foundry platform and associated AI development capabilities across the enterprise.
• Drives a managed federated AI development model that enables business and technology teams to build, deploy, and support AI solutions while adhering to enterprise governance standards.
• Serve as the senior technology leader responsible for the Foundry platform's administration, reliability, scalability, security, supportability, and regulatory compliance.
• Build the solution design of efforts that can be handed off to lower-level engineers for execution assuring reuse of platforms where possible.
• Drive engineering focused platform maturity, roadmap planning, service offerings, and lifecycle management for Foundry-based capabilities, including Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, copilots, prompt orchestration, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions.
• Review technical plans developed by lower-level engineers and analysts to assure quality designs prevail which can support the volumetrics of our business partners objectives.
• Build comprehensive measurement dashboards that give performance insight into key applications of the bank which can feed operational results of our business partners.
• Work independently or sometimes with architecture team counterparts to lay out the final documentation required for proper ongoing reference of the given solution, including physical and logical layouts with cross reference to use case models while enforcing standards, as well as assisting in the modification or buildout of procedures that support areas of operations across IT.

What you'll need:

• 10+ years of related experience including development and principal engineering supporting of banking technology, operational process management, and critical technical functions that drive value for internal efficiencies and external facing customer confidence.
• Bachelor's degree in related field required; Masters or MBA in related field preferred.
• Previous Principal Engineering experience preferred.
• Advanced to expert knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking is preferred.
• Advanced to expert knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards and practices.
• Advanced to expert experience in driving cross-functional engineering and development through their management of multiple projects simultaneously with an established expertise in one or more key domains of the bank (Deposits, Loans, Operations or Reporting)with the ability to walk through top level process design. Capable of working with regulatory partners like the CFPB, OCC and FRB through audits and collaboration efforts as situations arise.
• Advanced to expert familiarity with the capability model across IT and the applications and infrastructures available for engagement in solutioning across the bank to develop results that leverage existing capabilities in addition to implementing new solutions when required. Experience in the design, enhancement and compliance to all governance frameworks across the IT organization to ensure proper compliance to published procedures and standards.
• Advanced speaking and writing communication skills.

Benefits you’ll love:
We offer all the important things you'd want — like competitive salaries, an ownership stake in the company, medical and dental insurance, time off, a great 401k matching program, tuition assistance program, an employee volunteer program, and a wellness program. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to bolster your business knowledge, learning the ins and outs of how successful companies operate and manage their finances, giving you invaluable hands-on experience to help grow your career!

About the company:

Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation. Serving clients nationwide, Western Alliance Bank includes six legacy bank brands — Alliance Association Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank and Torrey Pines Bank — that remain part of the company’s heritage, as well as AmeriHome Mortgage, a Western Alliance Bank Company.

Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment and will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, nation origin, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information. Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process and/or need an alternative method of applying, please email HR@westernalliancebank.com or call 602-386-2488. When contacting us, please provide your contact information and state the nature of your accessibility issue. We will only respond to inquiries concerning requests that involve a reasonable accommodation in the application process.

© Western Alliance Bancorporation