Systems Engineering Manager Jobs in Philadelphia, PA

The AWMT Advice Superfamily consists of Discretionary Advice Platform, Financial Planning Journeys and Advice AI. When applying for this role, please indicate your first and second preferred areas of interest/alignment in the free form section.
Discretionary Advice Platform (DAP)
DAP Technology builds the systems behind financial advice at scale, serving millions of clients through high-throughput, low-latency digital experiences on modern distributed architectures. Our teams own the full stack (primarily Angular, TypeScript, and Node.js): micro-frontends, design system components, event-driven backends, API platforms, and data pipelines. We turn complex financial domain logic into composable, well-tested services across onboarding workflows, portfolio management, goal-based planning engines, money movement orchestration, and shared platform capabilities, supporting advisory experiences across digital, hybrid, and partner channels.
We ground ourselves in shared code ownership, high engineering standards (CI/CD discipline, observability-first design, automated quality gates), and continuous learning. We're looking for engineering leaders who still light up during architecture debates, leave thoughtful PR feedback, and earn trust by being the person their team turns to when the problem is genuinely hard. We expect you to operate hands-on: participating in architecture reviews, contributing to technical solutions, mentoring through pairing and code review, coaching a strong team that ships with rigor, and building systems that matter, while having fun doing it.
Financial Planning Journeys (FPJ)
Team Tetris is a full-stack product engineering team at Vanguard that builds the technology connecting hundreds of thousands of advised clients with the right financial professionals, alongside of providing critical client experiences for their Investments/Holdings and more. The team owns the Designated Point of Contact (DPOC) platform, a micro-frontend widget and backend service stack that delivers personalized advisor contact information across Vanguard's digital experiences, including dashboards, account pages, and onboarding flows serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients. The tech stack includes Angular, Preact, Node.js, TypeScript, and Java, and multi-region AWS services (ECS, S3, CloudFront), and the team works in a collaborative agile environment focused on reliability, observability, and clean architecture. Tetris is actively modernizing and expanding the platform to unify the contact experience across Vanguard's growing advice business. It's a unique opportunity to build software that directly shapes how clients experience one of the world's largest investment management companies.
Advice AI
A newly formed group focused on disrupting Advice with AI. Operating as a startup keen on rapid prototyping and experimentation, we are learning as we build. Driving toward an "Advisor in your Pocket" North Star, our flagship capability, Client Assist, strives to integrate conversational AI into our Digital Advisor offer using LLM context engineering with Vanguard-specific knowledge plus AI-exposed APIs/tools (user data, advice calculations, and UI components) to power a trusted, client-ready experience. As an Engineering manager in this group, you can lead us into the next frontier of how technology can power advice and coach engineers on modern AI augmented development practices and emerging patterns while influencing technical direction, architecture, and engineering standards as we evolve. Experience developing LLM-based systems and their ancillary technologies isn't required but is a plus. Examples include: LangGraph, AWS Bedrock, RAG, Arize, etc.
Core Responsibilities

• Leads, coaches, and develops a team of engineers. Establishes clear performance expectations, provides ongoing feedback, and supports career growth. Conducts performance reviews and makes compensation decisions in alignment with Human Resources policies.
• Owns responsibility for team outcomes, ensuring work is prioritized, risks are managed, and commitments are delivered in a timely and reliable manner.
• Applies a strong technical skillset to engage meaningfully with the team's work. Guides solution design, supports engineering decision-making, reviews technical approaches, and provides practical coaching to engineers.
• Fosters a culture of learning, adaptability, and continuous improvement. Encourages experimentation, reflection, and the evolution of engineering and delivery practices.
• Supports healthy team dynamics and effective collaboration. Reinforces clear roles, working agreements, and sustainable team rhythms that enable consistent performance.
• Identifies and resolves impediments that affect delivery, quality, or team effectiveness. Escalates complex issues to IT experts as needed and simplifies constraints to maintain momentum
• Partners closely with product leaders, technical leaders, and business stakeholders to clarify priorities, align expectations, and ensure delivered solutions meet evolving needs.
• Promotes high standards of engineering quality, including reliability, scalability, and performance. Reinforces sound development and testing practices.
• Participates in departmental planning, staffing discussions, and operational initiatives. Contributes to improving engineering practices and organizational effectiveness.
• Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications and Skills

• Minimum 8 years of experience in IT project management, software development, or IT service delivery. Previous leadership experience required.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field. PMP, ITIL, or Agile certifications preferred.
• Strong expertise in IT project management, Agile methodologies, and SDLC best practices with experience in IT infrastructure, software development, and enterprise IT solutions.
• Must have skills: Node.js, TypeScript, ECS, Kubernetes ,Kore. AI, Android, iOS development
• Proficiency in risk management, budgeting, and IT governance. Understanding of cybersecurity frameworks and IT compliance standards.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Special Factors
Sponsorship
Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.
About Vanguard
At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission-we're on a mission.
To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.
How We Work
Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.