SVP, Technology Strategy & Operations

Axos Bank

Target Range:

$185,000.00 /Yr. - $225,000.00 /Yr.

Actual starting pay will vary based on factors including, but not limited to, geographic location, experience, skills, specialty, and education.

Eligible for an Annual Discretionary Cash Bonus Target: 15%

Eligible for an Annual Discretionary Restricted Stock Units Bonus Target: 15%

These discretionary target bonuses may be awarded semi-annually based upon your achievement of performance goals and targets.

About This Job

This role will report onsite to our HQ in San Diego, CA. Remote is not available.
Axos Bank is seeking an SVP of Technology Strategy & Operations. This role is the horizontal owner for how technology is delivered across the seven verticals within Consumer Bank, Securities, and Enterprise Technology: Consumer Dev, Securities Dev, COE, Data, ABC Tech, Ops/Delivery, and Axos Universal Core. Each vertical is accountable for its own execution; this role is accountable for connecting them, ensuring every vertical not only reaches its own objectives, but does so aligned with the others from a solution and capability perspective, rather than each building in isolation. It drives that alignment through delivery standards, continuous improvement and transformation, including AI-enabled transformation such as implementing an AI-driven development lifecycle (AIDLC) across all seven verticals, and organizational change management, and by stepping in directly and taking operational ownership when a program anywhere in that portfolio goes off track.
This role also oversees execution of strategic initiatives and OKR's across the seven-vertical portfolio, along with budget and resource allocation trade-offs across all seven verticals. It carries a coordination dimension, aligning execution across seven verticals that each operate with their own priorities and cadences, but the primary mode of the role is hands-on: personally leading major cross-vertical initiatives end-to-end, diagnosing problems, making the call, and staying embedded until issues are actually resolved, not just coordinating other people's work.
This is a hands-on execution role, not a coordination-only one. Success is measured in programs turned around, standards actually adopted, and decisions made with full cross-vertical visibility, not in how well-run the meeting calendar is.

Responsibilities:Continuous Improvement & Transformation

• Own an ongoing, continuous transformation of how technology is delivered across all seven verticals: planning discipline, quality gates, architecture review, delivery reporting, continuously raising the baseline rather than treating transformation as a single, one-time initiative.
• Define delivery standards that apply horizontally across verticals, and drive the transformation of how those standards are operationalized, measured, and reinforced over time.
• Implement an AI-driven development lifecycle (AIDLC) across all seven verticals: embedding AI into planning, coding, testing, and delivery workflows as the standard way of working, transforming how software gets built across the portfolio rather than piloting it in one team.
• Oversee AI adoption and impact as a tracked outcome, not just a rollout, maximizing usage across the seven verticals, measuring the productivity and quality gains it actually produces, and directly intervening wherever adoption lags or impact isn't materializing.
• Maintain a working view of execution health across all seven verticals, not as a status report, but to identify where practices are diverging or capability gaps are widening, and drive the transformation needed to close them directly.

Organizational Change & Release Management

• Own the organizational change management function across Consumer Bank, Securities, and Enterprise Technology: turning new standards, delivery practices, and operating changes into habits that actually stick, rather than one-time announcements.
• Personally drive adoption of new standards and operating changes across seven verticals with different cultures and cadences, working directly with teams until change takes hold, not just communicating that it should.
• Own change readiness and adoption measurement for major cross-vertical initiatives, and course-correct where adoption is stalling.
• Lead the release management function for the enterprise, making the release sequencing and go/no-go calls directly so dependencies across the organization don't collide in production.
• Partner with each vertical's engineering leadership on release readiness and risk sign-off, stepping in directly where cross-vertical conflicts or platform-wide risk require it.

Technical Delivery Management

• Directly manage a standing technical delivery/program management team deployed against cross-vertical priorities, not just held in reserve for emergencies.
• Provide hands-on delivery leadership on major cross-vertical technical initiatives, working inside the program alongside the team, not overseeing it from a distance.
• Own project rescue: identify at-risk or failing programs anywhere across the seven verticals (behind schedule, over budget, technically compromised, or losing stakeholder confidence), personally take operational ownership, diagnose root cause (scope, resourcing, technical debt, vendor performance, architecture), and drive it back to green.
• Build the org's institutional muscle for catching delivery risk earlier, so rescue becomes the exception rather than a recurring pattern.

Technology Operations

• Oversee productivity measurement and effectiveness across the full workforce of Consumer Bank, Securities, and Enterprise Technology (500+ resources across all seven verticals): utilization, capacity, span of control, and org design, and drive measurable improvement wherever it's below benchmark.
• Build consistent metrics and benchmarks for comparing productivity and delivery throughput across verticals, so resourcing decisions are made on data rather than anecdote.
• Drive redeployment or rebalancing directly where FTE/contractor mix or skills alignment is misallocated against workload, not just flag it for the vertical to act on.
• Own coordination of technology-owned vendor relationships across all seven verticals (renewals, negotiations, and performance management), partnering closely with the procurement function rather than duplicating it.
• Prepare formal reporting for management and board-level audiences, consolidating delivery, resourcing, and vendor status into materials that hold up at that level.
• Own key delivery and engineering metrics, such as DORA metrics, and guide the BI team's performance reporting so what's measured and reported actually reflects portfolio priorities.

Strategic Portfolio Execution

• For major cross-vertical strategic initiatives, personally lead execution end-to-end. For the rest of the portfolio, translate SVP-level strategy into a shared cross-vertical plan, hold each vertical accountable for delivering against it, and get personally involved wherever execution stalls.
• Lead the OKR alignment and management across all seven verticals: setting cascading objectives and key results, tracking progress, and directly intervening where a vertical's OKRs are off track or disconnected from portfolio priorities.
• Triage cross-vertical escalations and resource conflicts; resolve what doesn't require senior management directly, and bring forward what does with options and a recommendation attached.

Success Measures (first 12 months)

• AIDLC adopted as the standard delivery workflow across a majority of the seven verticals, with measurable adoption rates and demonstrated 10X delivery impact.
• A measurable reduction in the number and duration of at-risk programs across the seven verticals, with a track record of programs returned to green.
• Assess and improvement the release management function to increase impact and improve successful releases.
• Delivery standards adopted (with evidence of use, not just sign-off) by a majority of the seven verticals.
• Demonstrable improvement in workforce productivity and utilization metrics across Consumer Bank, Securities, and Enterprise Technology, with a methodology leadership can trust.
• Cross-vertical OKRs that are coherent, tracked, and delivered against, not just published each cycle.
• A single, trusted cross-vertical view of budget, resourcing, and delivery status that holds up in board and executive settings without re-verification.

Requirements:

• 10+ years in technology leadership roles with direct, hands-on program/delivery management experience, including personally running or turning around technical programs.
• Demonstrated track record of program rescue or delivery turnaround: diagnosing why a technical initiative is failing and directly fixing it, not just reporting on it.
• Experience running a formal organizational change management practice (e.g., ADKAR, Prosci, or equivalent) at scale within a large technology organization.
• Experience managing workforce productivity and effectiveness for a large and complex technology organization: capacity planning, utilization analysis, and org design.
• Experience owning strategic portfolio execution and OKRs across multiple technology teams, with the standing to hold peer-level leaders accountable without direct line authority.
• Direct experience implementing AI-driven development practices (e.g., AI-assisted coding, testing, or delivery tooling) at scale, with demonstrated adoption and measurable productivity or quality impact, not just tool procurement.
• Experience managing technology vendor relationships (renewals, negotiations, performance) in partnership with a procurement function, and preparing materials for senior management or board-level reporting.
• Financial services or other highly regulated industry experience strongly preferred, given the compliance and audit obligations layered on top of standard delivery governance.

Preferred:

• Prior experience in banking or capital-markets technology, particularly where core banking, securities/clearing, and data platforms coexist under one technology organization.
• Experience leading delivery recovery or program rescue specifically within a regulated environment.
• Experience designing or rolling out an AI-driven development lifecycle (AIDLC) across multiple engineering teams.
• Formal certification or equivalent depth in organizational change management and/or workforce/organizational effectiveness.

Axos Employee Benefits May Include:

About Axos

Born digital-first, Axos delivers financial tools and services that allow individuals, small businesses, and companies to access and manage their money how, when, and where they want. We’re a diverse team of dynamic, insightful, and independent innovators who are excited to provide technology-driven solutions that offer unbeatable value to our customers.

Axos Financial is our holding company and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "AX" (NYSE: AX).

Learn more about working at Axos

Pre-Employment Background Check and Drug Test:

All offers are contingent upon the candidate successfully passing a credit check, criminal background check, and pre-employment drug screening, which includes screening for marijuana. Axos Bank is a federally regulated banking institution. At the federal level, marijuana is an illegal schedule 1 drug; therefore, we will not employ any person who tests positive for marijuana, regardless of state legalization.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Axos is an Equal Opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, religious creed, color, sex (including pregnancy, breast feeding and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, military and veteran status, marital status, age, protected medical condition, genetic information, physical disability, mental disability, or any other protected status in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Job Functions and Work Environment:

While performing the duties of this position, the employee is required to sit for extended periods of time. Manual dexterity and coordination are required while operating standard office equipment such as computer keyboard and mouse, calculator, telephone, copiers, etc.

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee may encounter while performing the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

E-Verify and Right to Work Notices

Axos participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program in all facilities located in the United States. The E-Verify program is an internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

IER Right to Work Poster (English/Spanish)

E-Verify Participation Poster (English/Spanish)