Application Engineering

AllianceBernstein LP•Minneapolis, MN

About The Position

This role offers the opportunity to shape the technology strategy for a leading global alternative investment manager. You will work alongside a collaborative, innovative technology team supporting significant assets under management. We are seeking a VP, Application Engineering to lead our bespoke application development function within the Private Alternatives Technology team. This role is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the suite of internal applications that power our investment operations. The successful candidate will manage a team of software engineers and oversee our portfolio of over 15 production applications, with a growing focus on AI-powered solutions. This is not a role for someone content with maintaining the status quo. We are looking for an intellectually curious engineering leader who is energized by exploring new technologies, challenging conventional approaches, and continuously seeking better ways to solve problems. The ideal candidate has a genuine passion for AI and its potential to transform how applications are built, how developers work, and how investment teams operate. We believe in keeping things simple and functional. Our intentionally focused tech stack, Python with Flask and FastAPI, allows our engineers to move seamlessly between projects without constant context switching. We maintain over 95% test coverage using pytest within our CI/CD pipeline because we believe quality code is sustainable code. Everything runs in containerized environments on AWS ECS. We use modern tools like Redis for caching and Snowflake for everything data, but we are thoughtful about adding new technologies. Every addition must earn its place by solving real problems better than our existing tools. The Application Engineer will lead the design, development, and maintenance of bespoke internal applications using Python (Flask, FastAPI) and modern web frameworks including React, Vite, and Shadcn. This includes architecting and deploying applications on AWS while ensuring scalability, security, and cost efficiency. A core part of this role involves managing and mentoring a team of software engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, experimentation, and innovation. This leader will champion engineering best practices across the team, including comprehensive testing, thoughtful code reviews, and clear documentation. The successful candidate will oversee and enhance our mature CI/CD infrastructure built on CircleCI, maintaining the team's commitment to over 95% test coverage using pytest and ensuring continuous integration, testing, and deployment across the application portfolio. This leader will champion the adoption of AI across the application portfolio by integrating AI/ML solutions, particularly LLMs and generative AI, to enhance our analytics and automation capabilities. We expect this person to drive technical innovation by evaluating new tools and approaches, especially in the AI/ML space, while being thoughtful about what earns a place in our stack. Additional responsibilities include partnering with business stakeholders to understand complex investment processes and translate them into practical technical solutions, overseeing the full software development lifecycle from requirements gathering through production deployment and ongoing support, and ensuring application security, performance, and reliability across the application portfolio. Beyond technical skills, we are looking for someone with a natural curiosity and hunger to learn. This person stays ahead of industry trends, experiments with new tools, and brings fresh ideas to the table. We want an out-of-the-box thinker who does not just implement what has been done before but actively seeks innovative approaches to engineering challenges. A genuine enthusiasm for AI and its applications is critical. We are not looking for someone who views AI as just a buzzword, but rather as a transformative tool they actively use and advocate for in development workflows, application features, and team productivity. This person should have a builder's mindset: someone who takes pride in creating things that make a real impact and is energized by turning ideas into production-ready solutions. We value engineers who are thoughtful about technology choices. Our philosophy is that every tool must earn its place by solving real problems better than existing solutions. We want someone who understands when to adopt new technologies and when to leverage what already works well. The ideal candidate is someone who will mentor junior developers and champion engineering best practices across the team. They maintain high code quality standards through comprehensive testing and thoughtful code reviews, and they lead by example in writing clean, maintainable code.

Requirements

10 or more years building and shipping complex web applications, with at least three years in a leadership or management capacity.
A Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field is expected.
Strong proficiency in Python is essential.
Experience designing and developing RESTful APIs using Flask or FastAPI is required.
Solid understanding of relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL, including schema design and query optimization, with or without an ORM.
Extensive experience with AWS services is required, including Lambda, S3, RDS, ECS, ECR, and API Gateway.
Experience with containerization using Docker and deploying containerized applications is essential.
Proven experience with CI/CD pipelines, preferably CircleCI, and a commitment to code quality with experience maintaining comprehensive test coverage using pytest.
Experience building and deploying production web applications at scale is necessary.
Hands-on experience with AI/ML models, especially LLMs, or demonstrated enthusiasm to learn and apply AI technologies.
Excellent communication skills are essential. You should be able to explain technical concepts clearly to both engineers and business stakeholders.
A track record of leading projects and collaborating effectively in cross-functional teams is required.

Nice To Haves

A Master's degree in a relevant field is preferred but not required.
Experience in financial services is desirable, particularly in asset management, private credit, or alternative investments.
While knowledge of the private credit space is not required, familiarity with investment operations would be beneficial.
Familiarity with our specific tech stack is highly desirable: PostgreSQL, Flask, FastAPI, React, Vite, Shadcn, Docker, Redis, CircleCI, Pandas, NumPy, and AWS Lambda.
Experience with frontend development, particularly React, would be valuable.
Familiarity with data platforms such as Snowflake and analytics tools like Sigma would be advantageous.
Experience in data engineering, ETL pipelines, or real-time data processing is a plus.
Published work or open-source contributions in AI/ML or fintech would be viewed favorably.

Responsibilities

Lead the design, development, and maintenance of bespoke internal applications using Python (Flask, FastAPI) and modern web frameworks including React, Vite, and Shadcn.
Architecting and deploying applications on AWS while ensuring scalability, security, and cost efficiency.
Manage and mentor a team of software engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, experimentation, and innovation.
Champion engineering best practices across the team, including comprehensive testing, thoughtful code reviews, and clear documentation.
Oversee and enhance our mature CI/CD infrastructure built on CircleCI, maintaining the team's commitment to over 95% test coverage using pytest and ensuring continuous integration, testing, and deployment across the application portfolio.
Champion the adoption of AI across the application portfolio by integrating AI/ML solutions, particularly LLMs and generative AI, to enhance our analytics and automation capabilities.
Drive technical innovation by evaluating new tools and approaches, especially in the AI/ML space, while being thoughtful about what earns a place in our stack.
Partner with business stakeholders to understand complex investment processes and translate them into practical technical solutions.
Oversee the full software development lifecycle from requirements gathering through production deployment and ongoing support.
Ensure application security, performance, and reliability across the application portfolio.