Head - Technology Engineering - Capital Markets

Role Purpose:

The Head of Engineering will be responsible for end-to-end technology engineering and delivery, translating the technology roadmap and business priorities into scalable, secure and reliable technology solutions.

The role will lead the engineering organisation and act as the primary technology delivery owner, ensuring that initiatives are delivered on time, with the required quality, resilience, security and engineering standards.

The Head of Engineering will work closely with the Business, Product, Technology SMEs, Architecture, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Operations and external technology partners to drive successful delivery across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Engineering & Delivery Leadership:

- Own the overall engineering delivery function across applications and technology platforms.

- Translate business and technology priorities into executable engineering plans.

- Establish clear ownership, accountability, milestones and delivery governance.

- Ensure end-to-end delivery from solution design through development, testing, release and production stabilisation.

- Drive engineering teams to deliver within agreed scope, timelines, quality and budget.

- Proactively identify delivery risks, dependencies and bottlenecks and drive resolution.

- Establish engineering capacity and resource planning aligned to the technology roadmap.

2. Business-to-Technology Delivery:

- Work closely with the Technical BA / Domain SME team to translate business requirements into technology deliverables.

- Ensure requirements are technically feasible, appropriately scoped and clearly understood by delivery teams.

- Provide escalation and decision-making support for complex business and technology requirements.

- Ensure business priorities are translated into a properly sequenced engineering roadmap.

- Maintain strong engagement with senior business stakeholders.

3. Engineering Organisation:

- Lead and develop the application engineering teams.

- Establish appropriate engineering structures across: Application Development, Application Support, Integration/API, Data Engineering, DevOps / DevSecOps, QA / Automation, and Platform Engineering.

- Define roles, responsibilities and ownership across engineering teams.

- Build engineering capabilities through hiring, training and succession planning.

- Establish performance objectives and engineering KPIs.

4. Application & Solution Architecture:

- Ensure engineering solutions align with the overall technology architecture.

- Work with Enterprise / Solution Architects on application design and technology standards.

- Review major solution designs and challenge inappropriate or non-scalable approaches.

- Drive API-first, modular and scalable architecture.

- Identify and address technical debt.

- Drive application rationalisation and modernization.

- Ensure engineering decisions consider performance, scalability, security, resilience and maintainability.

5. Technology Delivery Governance:

- Establish a robust SDLC and delivery governance framework.

- Define engineering standards for: Coding, Code reviews, Branching, Testing, Release management, Documentation, Deployment, and Production support.

- Establish engineering KPIs and delivery metrics.

- Monitor delivery velocity, quality, defect leakage and release performance.

- Drive continuous improvement in engineering processes.

6. DevOps & Automation:

- Drive adoption of CI/CD and DevSecOps practices.

- Automate build, test and deployment processes.

- Improve release frequency while maintaining production stability.

- Establish automated testing and quality gates.

- Improve observability, monitoring and application performance management.

- Promote infrastructure/application automation in collaboration with Infrastructure and Cloud teams.

7. Application Reliability & Production Stability:

- Own engineering response to major application incidents.

- Ensure effective technical RCA and permanent corrective actions.

- Drive reduction of recurring incidents and technical defects.

- Establish application reliability and availability targets.

- Ensure production changes follow appropriate release and change management processes.

- Work with Infrastructure, Cloud, Cybersecurity and Operations teams on resilience.

8. DR, BCP & Resilience:

- Ensure critical applications have appropriate DR and resilience architecture.

- Participate in DR drills and production resilience exercises.

- Ensure application-level recovery procedures are documented and tested.

- Drive reduction in application recovery and failover times.

- Identify single points of failure across applications and integrations.

- Ensure engineering teams incorporate resilience by design.

9. Vendor & Partner Management:

- Provide technology leadership for strategic application vendors and development partners.

- Review vendor solution proposals, estimates and technical approaches.

- Establish clear SLAs, deliverables and engineering expectations.

- Monitor vendor development quality and delivery performance.

- Challenge vendor technical decisions where required.

- Drive resolution of critical vendor issues and escalations.

- Ensure adequate knowledge transfer from vendors to internal teams.

10. Security & Compliance:

- Ensure security is embedded within the software development lifecycle.

- Work closely with Cybersecurity / Information Security teams on secure development practices.

- Ensure vulnerability remediation and secure coding practices are incorporated into engineering processes.

- Support VAPT, application security assessments and audit requirements.

- Ensure regulatory technology requirements are incorporated into engineering deliveries.

- Maintain appropriate technology controls and evidence for audits and regulatory reviews.

11. Technology Modernisation:

- Drive modernization of legacy applications and technology platforms.

- Identify opportunities for: Platform consolidation, Cloud adoption, API enablement, Microservices, Automation, Application rationalisation, and Data modernization.

- Establish technical roadmap aligned with business priorities.

- Build business cases for major engineering investments.

- Balance modernization with operational stability and regulatory requirements.

12. Financial & Resource Management:

- Own engineering resource planning and capacity.

- Support technology budget planning for application development and engineering.

- Review vendor costs, development estimates and technology investments.

- Optimise internal versus vendor engineering capacity.

- Ensure technology investments provide measurable business value.

Key Deliverables:

- Engineering delivery roadmap

- Application modernization roadmap

- Engineering capacity and resource plan

- Application architecture and technical standards

- SDLC / engineering governance framework

- CI/CD and DevSecOps maturity

- Application reliability and stability

- Technical debt reduction

- Engineering KPI / KRI dashboard

- Vendor engineering performance

- DR / resilience readiness

- Major project delivery

- Technology risk remediation

Key Performance Indicators:

The Head of Engineering should be measured on:

- On-time delivery of technology initiatives

- Delivery predictability

- Production defect leakage

- Application availability and stability

- Critical incident recurrence

- Release success rate

- Release frequency / deployment efficiency

- Technical debt reduction

- Vulnerability remediation

- DR / resilience readiness

- Vendor delivery performance

- Engineering productivity

- Resource utilisation

- Technology cost optimisation

- Business stakeholder satisfaction

Technical Competencies:

Strong understanding of:

- Application architecture

- Distributed systems

- APIs and microservices

- Java / .NET or equivalent enterprise technology stacks

- SQL / relational databases

- Cloud - AWS / Azure

- CI/CD

- DevOps / DevSecOps

- Automated testing

- Messaging / middleware

- Application performance and observability

- Cybersecurity fundamentals

- DR / HA architecture

- Data and integration architecture

- Agile / Scrum delivery

- ITIL / production management

- Capital Markets / Broking Experience

Preferred experience in:

- Trading / OMS / RMS

- NSE / BSE exchange connectivity

- Front Office / Back Office

- Demat / Depository

- Settlement systems

- Digital trading platforms

- Market data

- Regulatory technology

- Broking application ecosystems

Leadership Profile:

- 15+ years of technology / engineering experience, with significant leadership experience.

- Proven experience managing large engineering teams and technology vendors.

- Strong understanding of enterprise application architecture.

- Demonstrated ownership of complex, business-critical technology deliveries.

- Ability to operate at both strategic and execution levels.

- Strong stakeholder management with Business, CXO, Technology and external partners.

- Strong problem-solving and decision-making capabilities.

- Ability to build engineering discipline while maintaining delivery agility.