Principal Software Engineer

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.


Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world's most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Title: Principal Software Engineer

Role Overview

The Principal Software Engineer in NTAM Investments Technology is a senior technical leader with 10+ years' experience in financial services responsible for architecting and delivering scalable software and data platforms with a strong emphasis on Java-based services, data engineering, and Cloud enablement. This role partners closely with engineers, product owners, and business stakeholders in NTAM Investments to build secure, reliable, and high-performance systems, while setting engineering standards and mentoring other engineers.

The ideal candidate has deep hands-on experience in Java (Springboot, React), strong SQL and data modeling capabilities, experience deploying on Microsoft Azure Cloud, and demonstrated ability to design data-driven performant financial applications.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Technical ownership, clearly communicate trade-offs, risks, and dependencies to senior investment and technology stakeholders.
• 8+ years experience in leading the design, development, and deployment of scalable solutions using Java Spring boot, Azure services, and SQL-based data platforms.
• Define and enforce coding standards, architecture best practices, and development workflows through design and code reviews.
• Drive modern architecture patterns including Azure Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) component orchestration, API-driven microservices and event-driven (pub/sub) systems.
• Design and optimize SQL data models, queries, and stored procedures in Snowflake for performance and scalability.
• Establish strong testing and quality standards, including unit testing and API test automation.
• Champion adoption of GitHub Copilot as an AI-assisted development capability while ensuring SDLC discipline remains intact.

Collaboration, Influence & Mentorship

• Partner cross-functionally with data engineering, architecture, and product teams to deliver cohesive solutions.
• Mentor and coach engineers across levels, raising overall technical engineering practices.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders and influence architectural decisions.
• Guide best practices for SQL database design, optimization, and data integrity.
• Drive CI/CD pipeline automation and resolve critical production issues.
• Architect AI-driven applications and integrate machine learning models into production systems.

Domain Knowledge (Highly Preferred)

• Experience in Front office Investment Management solutions including but not limited to Portfolio management, Trading and Rebalancing, Account/Client onboarding etc.
• Understanding of Asset Management asset classes, portfolio theory, and investment constraints.
• Experience with Blackrock Aladdin, Bloomberg AIM, or other OMS platforms.
• Experience with financial data providers (Bloomberg, FactSet, MSCI) and APIs.

Required Skills:

• Azure PaaS & Cloud Architecture: Expertise in Azure services (App Service, Functions, databases, integration tools) with ability to design scalable, resilient, cloud-native architectures.
• Development, DevOps & Automation: Strong programming skills (e.g., Java Springboot, Container deployments, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code (ARM/Terraform) for automated deployments.
• Security, Monitoring & Operations: Proficiency in Azure security (Entra ID, RBAC, Key Vault), observability (Monitor, App Insights), and performance optimization of distributed systems.
• Experience with Service Oriented Architecture (SOAP/REST APIs) and messaging technologies MQ and JMS.
• Experience in Spring/Spring boot frameworks in developing Java (POJO) based applications.

Salary Range:
$137,400 - 233,600 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us:


As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We'd love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world's most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater


Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at View email address on click.appcast.io.

We hope you're excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.