Application Engineer - III

About Vanguard
Founded in 1975, Vanguard is one of the world's leading investment management companies. The firm offers investments, advice, and retirement services to tens of millions of individual investors around the globe—directly, through workplace plans, and through financial intermediaries.

Vanguard’s India Office

Vanguard’s office in India is a significant milestone in our global expansion. We are committed to establishing an enduring technology center in Hyderabad, Telangana and are excited to be adding talent who will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobile, and cloud-based technologies that drive our business outcomes and deliver a world-class experience for our clients.  

Role Summary

• This role provides advanced-level system analysis, design, development, and implementation of applications and databases under general direction, and leads backend optimization, data integration, documentation, and secure, scalable architecture aligned with enterprise standards.

About Team and Role:

• We are looking for an experienced Server-Side Python/AWS Developer to join a Full-Stack team embracing New Ways of Working (NWoW) in Vanguard’s Global Investments Financial Systems (GIFS) division.

• We are rapidly expanding our technology presence in India, so this is an exciting opportunity to join the team, contribute to delivery, build technical depth, and gain exposure to the Investment Management apparatus at Vanguard.

• This team builds and supports the technology platforms that enable Vanguard’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data capabilities. The team acquires, manages, enriches and distributes ESG data across the firm. This includes building data ingestion pipelines, APIs, cloud-based data services and workflow capabilities that help ensure ESG data is accurate, secure, well-governed and readily accessible to downstream consumers.

• This role focuses on building event-driven, cloud-native systems using Python and AWS, with particular emphasis on Amazon S3 (including Access Points) and DynamoDB, and orchestration via AWS Lambda, Step Functions, and ECS. The team uses agile methodologies and operates a continuous delivery pipeline.

• Good hands-on experience implementing Python-based services in a production environment is required. Practical knowledge of AWS or other cloud provider core services is expected.

• The successful candidate will be a motivated developer with strong problem-solving skills, a commitment to quality, and good documentation and testing habits. This role requires strong communication and collaboration skills, as well as a proactive mindset—including asking clarifying questions, identifying edge cases, and surfacing risks early.

• The role includes daily interaction with business partners and product managers, making effective written and verbal communication essential.

• Join us and help us innovate for client success!

In this developer role, you will:

• Collaborate closely with business users, product managers, and engineering partners - actively asking questions and clarifying requirements to ensure high-quality outcomes. 

• Build and maintain Python-based services on AWS, using event-driven patterns tied to S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, Step Functions, and ECS.

Contribute to data architecture and implementation decisions, including:

• S3 buckets and Access Points

• Bucket/object modelling and partitioning

• DynamoDB and NoSQL data modelling

• REST / GraphQL APIs

• Encryption/KMS policies

• Performance and scalability considerations

• Integrate S3 and DynamoDB with event-driven compute (Lambda), orchestrated workflows (Step Functions), and container workloads (ECS). 

• Support end-to-end testing for event-driven systems, including integration testing, schema validation, replay/idempotency scenarios, and testing across AWS services.

• Work with Avro for data serialization, including schema usage, schema evolution concepts, and Python libraries such as fastavro or avro.

• Maintain good engineering practices through clean code, code reviews, documentation, observability, resilience, and operational readiness.

• Provide 3rd-line support as needed and contribute to continuous improvement.

What it takes:
Technical Expertise

• Minimum 5 years of experience in software development, system integration, database design, and back-end architecture.

• Bachelor’s degree (B.E./B.Tech) in relevant fields such as Computer Science, or a Master’s degree/Diploma in Computer Science.

Python development experience, including:

• Object-oriented programming

• Type hints and static analysis

• Packaging, virtual environments, and dependency management

• Concurrency (multiprocessing)

• Testing experience using pytest, unittest, and related frameworks

Hands-on experience with Amazon S3, including:

• S3 Access Points and fine-grained IAM controls

• Lifecycle rules, storage classes, multipart uploads

Experience working with NoSQL databases such as:

• DynamoDB in AWS

Experience with: 

• AWS Lambda (serverless patterns, event integration, concurrency & retries)

• AWS Step Functions (workflow orchestration, error handling, compensating flows)

• Amazon ECS (task definitions, service scaling, container orchestration)

End-to-end testing experience for event-driven architectures:

• Contract testing and integration testing concepts

• Avro schema validation and compatibility testing

• Integration tests across S3 → Lambda → Step Functions → ECS pipelines

• Monitoring and observability validation

Experience working with Avro:

• Understanding of schema design and evolution strategies

• Efficient read/write using fastavro, etc.

• Handling large datasets and streaming workflows

Experience with:

• Experience with cloud-native CI/CD, logging, and monitoring tools (Git/Bitbucket, CloudWatch, Splunk, etc.)

Ways of Working

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to a range of stakeholders.

• Proactive mindset: asks questions, uncovers assumptions, proposes solutions early, and takes initiative.

• Ability to work under pressure, prioritise effectively, and meet tight deadlines.

• Familiarity with agile practices and tools such as JIRA and Confluence.

Location

This role is based in Hyderabad, Telangana at Vanguard’s India office. Only qualified external applicants will be considered.

Our mission

Vanguard adheres to a simple purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

Our commitment to you 

Vanguard takes the same long-term view of your success—at work and in life—with Benefits and Rewards packages that reflect what you care about, throughout all the phases and stages of your life. Our Total Rewards programs provide you and your loved ones with wellness support for key areas in your life: 

Financial wellness 
We're committed to enabling your financial success and provide competitive offers and programs. 

Physical wellness 
We're committed to providing benefits that support your physical health and wellness. 

Personal wellness 
We're committed to providing resources that help support the full scope of your life. 

How we work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for most of our employees (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.