VP, Middleware Engineer, Technology Group

GIC is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. With over 2,000 employees across 11 locations around the world, we invest in more than 40 countries globally across asset classes and businesses. Working at GIC gives you exposure to an extraordinary network of the world’s industry leaders. As a leading global long-term investor, we Work at the Point of Impact for Singapore’s financial future, and the communities we invest in worldwide.

Technology Group

We experiment, design, and lead a 24×7 global business where we support core capabilities in asset management, trading, investment operations, and risk management. We deliver secure, reliable, and integrated solutions, and provide insights on new, and emerging technologies.

Infrastructure & Cybersecurity Resilience (ICR)

We design, build, and secure the technology foundations that power GIC’s global investment operations. We aim to deliver resilient, scalable, and secure infrastructure that empowers our people and businesses to perform securely, efficiently, and effectively.

About the role

We are looking for a Senior Database Engineer to design, run and modernise the database platforms behind GIC's business-critical applications. You will be the technical authority across Oracle, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server, both on-premises and in the cloud. You will help lead our move to cloud and hybrid database services while keeping the availability, performance and security that an investment organisation needs.

What impact can you make in this role?

You will be the technical and engineering leader for GIC’s global middleware, web services and SWIFT estate, owning the strategy, architecture and delivery of the enterprise integration backbone: API gateway, messaging, application hosting and IBM middleware platforms that connect investment, risk and operations systems. You will evolve legacy platforms into cloud-native, open-source and AI/agent-powered services, and lead a team that treats middleware as an automated, self-service product. Application teams can onboard APIs, queues and applications in minutes, and security, resilience and audit evidence are built into the pipeline rather than added afterwards. Over the next five years, you will turn GIC’s middleware into a differentiator for performance, scale, agility and insight.

What will you do as a VP, Middleware Engineering?

Strategy and roadmap

• Define and execute the multi-year middleware, web services and SWIFT engineering strategy and roadmap, aligned with business and investment objectives (cloud migration, cost optimisation, latency SLAs, AI/ML readiness) and covering modernisation, consolidation, container adoption and end-of-life management across Kong, IBM MQ and the wider IBM stack.
• Set outcome-based KPIs and SLOs for availability, throughput, latency, provisioning lead time, patch currency, automation coverage, cost, error budgets and developer experience, and report progress to senior stakeholders.
• Build business cases and investment proposals, and manage the platform’s budget, licensing, capacity plans and resource allocation.Architecture and technical leadership
• Own end-to-end architecture for synchronous (API) and asynchronous (messaging and event-driven) integration. Set reference architectures and standards.
• Lead the design of highly available, DR-ready platforms, including Kong on Kubernetes and IBM MQ Native HA and Uniform Clusters.
• Provide technical direction on application hosting and IBM middleware: WebSphere Application Server, Liberty, Portal and Process Server, IBM HTTP Server, ACE, DataPower, API Connect and Event Streams, as well as WebLogic (including Forms and Reports), Oracle Application Server, Apache and Tomcat; evaluate emerging technologies.
• Design and maintain message-driven processes for low-latency, high-volume transaction environments (wires, ACH, instant payments) and oversee SWIFT applications.
• Drive cloud-native patterns for web services and middleware on AWS, while ensuring the continued stability and security of critical on-premises applications and sensitive data.
• Act as the final technical escalation point for major incidents and complex design decisions.Automation and engineering excellence
• Drive a configuration-as-code, GitOps-first operating model in which production changes are made only through reviewed and tested pipelines (Terraform, Ansible, Helm, Argo CD or Flux, decK, Jenkins or Spinnaker).
• Establish engineering standards for code quality, testing, change control and policy-as-code, and define automation guardrails and approval models. Embed DevOps and Agile practices in day-to-day delivery.
• Deliver secure UI- and API-based self-service onboarding and runbooks-as-code that are safe, auditable and reversible, consumable by end users and applications.
• Automate operational tasks and infrastructure changes using wsadmin, Python, Ansible, Bash or PowerShell.
• Drive adoption of AI, agentic and AIOps capabilities such as anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, self-healing, auto-scaling of clusters and queue managers, and automated patching.

Reliability, resilience and operations

• Build end-to-end observability and SLO-based alerting across the integration estate using modern platforms (Grafana, Datadog or equivalent).
• Own operational resilience: develop and maintain middleware DR plans and end-to-end runbooks, DR design and testing, capacity planning, performance engineering, and post-incident corrective and preventive actions.
• Partner with ITSM (ServiceNow), Incident and Problem Management to manage support services and change, and to improve mean time to recovery.

Security, risk and governance

• Embed secure-by-design practices: TLS/mTLS, OAuth2/OIDC, MQ channel and object security, PKI, SSL certificate management and secrets lifecycle automation, plus timely vulnerability patching of middleware components.
• Enforce enterprise information security policies and standards, assess requirements against them, and help implement them across IT and the business.
• Work with Risk & Controls, Cybersecurity and Audit teams to maintain controls, support routine compliance activities, produce evidence, close findings and meet regulatory expectations.
• Own vendor stewardship for Kong, IBM and other middleware vendors, including support escalations, roadmap engagement and licensing negotiations.

People and stakeholder leadership

• Build, lead and grow a high-performing global team of middleware, web services, SWIFT and automation engineers and technical managers, including hiring, mentoring and performance management.
• Foster a culture of innovation, “build once, reuse everywhere”, knowledge sharing, automation-first and measured risk-taking.Influence and collaborate with business, application, AI, analytics, architecture, network, operations and security leaders to align the platform with enterprise priorities.

What makes you a successful candidate?

Must have

• 15+ years in information technology, including 10+ years in middleware, integration or platform engineering (hands-on application server and web hosting experience in a large organisation, preferably banking), and at least 3 years leading engineering teams or platforms at enterprise scale.
• Deep hands-on expertise in IBM middleware, including WebSphere Application Server and Liberty, and IBM MQ (clustering, HA/DR, performance, security); strong working knowledge of at least two other products such as ACE, WebSphere Portal, Process Server, IHS, DataPower, API Connect or Event Streams. Exposure to WebLogic is expected.
• Hands-on production experience with Kong (4+ years) or an equivalent enterprise API gateway.
• Proven track record of delivering Infrastructure as Code (e.g. reusable Terraform modules), GitOps and CI/CD for stateful platforms across a large estate.
• Strong Kubernetes/OpenShift, Linux/Unix and Windows administration, TCP/IP networking, TLS/PKI, plus scripting or development skills in Python, Bash and wsadmin/Jython, with Go or equivalent; working knowledge of J2EE, XML and SQL.
• Hands-on experience with at least one public cloud (AWS preferred).
• Experience engaging audit, risk and regulatory stakeholders, with familiarity with security and compliance frameworks such as NIST, CIS and ISO 27002, and SDLC governance.
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills, and communication and influencing skills across engineers, architects, CISO and senior management.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Nice to have

• Certifications in Kong, IBM MQ or Cloud Pak for Integration, CKA, Terraform, or a public cloud or middleware product.
• SWIFT application management, and low-latency payments messaging (wires, ACH, instant payments).
• Kafka and event-driven architecture at scale.
• Experience building an internal developer platform, writing custom Kong plugins, or applying AIOps and agentic automation to infrastructure operations.
• Background in financial services or asset management.
• Experience with SRE practices and vendor and commercial negotiation.

Behaviours

• Automation bias: you push our teams to script, test & codify before doing anything twice.
• Systems thinker who balances reliability, security, cost and developer experience.
• Operates at multiple altitudes: architecture, code and design review, executive communication.
• Self-motivated and ownership-minded, calm under pressure, and a strong people leader with excellent written and verbal communication.

Work at the Point of Impact

We need to be forward-looking to attract the right people to help us become the Leading Global Long-term Investor. Join our ambitious, agile, and diverse teams - be empowered to push boundaries and pursue innovative ideas, share your views, and be heard. Be anchored on our PRIME Values: Prudence, Respect, Integrity, Merit and Excellence, which guides us in how we make our day-to-day decisions. We strive to inspire. To make an impact.

GIC is a Great Place to Work

At GIC, our offices are vibrant hubs for ideation, professional growth, and interpersonal connection. At the same time, we believe that flexibility allows us to do our best work and be our best selves. Thus, our teams come into the office four days per week to harness the benefits of in-person collaboration, but have the flexibility to choose which days they work from home and adjust this arrangement as situational needs arise.

GIC is an equal opportunity employer
As an employer, we passionately believe every individual brings with them unique diversity of thought and perspectives to meaningfully enrich perspectives of GIC teams to drive competitive performance. An inclusive environment yields exceptional contribution.

Learn more about our Technology Group here:

Our PRIME Values

GIC is a values driven organization. GIC’s PRIME Values act as our compass, enabling us to fulfil our fundamental purpose and objectives. It is the foundational bedrock which governs our behaviors, our decision making, and our focus. It informs both our long-term strategy as a firm, and the way we relate to our Client, business partners and employees. PRIME stands for Prudence, Respect, Integrity, Merit and Excellence.