Sr Mgr Software Engineering

Powering the worlds payments ecosystem

ACI powers the payments ecosystem globally and you power ACI. Youll innovate collaborate and grow in an energetic technology culture with decades of proven success. ACIers in all roles and levels are truly your colleagues and many are your friends. Our size and reach allow you to see the global impact of your work. You are visible your talents are valued and you are empowered to shape the future of payments.

As a Sr. Mgr. Software Engineering in Norcross GA you will join a diverse passionate team dedicated to powering the worlds payments ecosystem!

Role Summary

We are seeking a hands-on Sr. Engineering Manager to lead a cross-functional team (Software Engineering DevOps/Platform Support and Quality Engineering) building and operating a low-latency high-throughput core banking product platform. You will be accountable for end-to-end delivery: architecture-to-production execution operational excellence reliability security/compliance and an automation-first quality strategy. You will also bring demonstrated experience delivering AI-enabled initiatives and implementing AI-based solutions in production.

Location & Work Model:This is a hybrid position based out of Norcross GA. Candidates are expected to be on-site on designated days and may work remotely on other days in accordance with team and business needs.

Key Responsibilities

1) Engineering Leadership & Delivery

• Lead and grow a cross-functional team spanning backend frontend DevOps/Platform engineering and Quality Engineering; drive strong ownership execution discipline and continuous improvement.
• Own delivery for roadmap initiatives and platform modernization across the full SDLC: planning design implementation reviews testing release and production operations.
• Establish and communicate technical direction in partnership with Product Management and Architecture to ensure the platform meets business goals and non-functional requirements.

2) Low-Latency Reliability and Performance (NFR-First)

• Drive performance and latency engineering: define latency/throughput SLOs performance budgets regression testing and capacity planning to maintain predictable low-latency behavior under load.
• Build always-on operational readiness: observability (logs/metrics/traces) runbooks safe rollouts (feature flags progressive delivery) and rapid rollback practices.
• Partner with Platform/SRE functions to ensure Kubernetes runtime reliability patterns (HA scaling and operational tooling) are built into the product delivery lifecycle.

3) DevOps / Platform Engineering Ownership

• Lead the teams cloud-native delivery model on Kubernetes (including GitOps-based deployment and configuration-as-code).
• Own and evolve CI/CD and artifact practices using technologies such as Ansible Nexus Carvel toolchain (e.g. ytt kapp-controller) and Kubernetes-native release workflows.
• Ensure secure repeatable environment provisioning and reliable deployments across dev/test/stage/prod with automation as the default.

4) Quality Engineering & Test Automation (Shift-Left)

• Build a quality-first culture with an automated testing strategy across unit/integration/e2e with strong coverage targets and non-negotiable quality gates.
• Implement and operationalize modern test orchestration and automation tooling including Testkube and enforce reliable maintainable CI test execution.
• Drive security and compliance testing as part of CI/CD (SAST/DAST/dependency scanning) ensuring regulated-workload readiness and auditability.

5) AI-Enabled Engineering & Delivered AI Projects (Must-Have)

• Lead delivery of AI-enabled initiatives in two dimensions:
  1. AI-accelerated SDLC (planning code review test generation documentation defect reduction) and
  2. AI/ML/GenAI solution delivery where AI is part of the shipped product or operational capability.
• Establish responsible AI usage practices: teams are encouraged to use AI but remain accountable for outputs; validate correctness security and maintainability before merging.
• Enforce safe prompting and data handling: never place secrets/credentials/PCI/PII into prompts; use placeholders and abstractions.

6) People Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Coach engineers DevOps and QE leads; build career plans performance feedback loops and hiring strategies to raise the talent bar.
• Collaborate with Product Security Compliance and Operations leaders to deliver outcomes with transparency predictable execution and clear metrics.

Required Qualifications

• 8 years in software engineering building distributed systems; 4 years leading teams (engineering DevOps and/or QE leadership experience strongly preferred).
• Proven experience building and operating low-latency high-throughput systems in banking payments or other regulated transaction platforms.
• Hands-on expertise with:
  • Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures (microservices containerization orchestration)
  • Java backend development (high-performance concurrent resilient services)
  • Angular (modern web UI performance-minded frontend engineering)
  • Ansible (automation/configuration management)
  • Nexus (artifact repository and dependency management)
  • Cloud Infrastructure (Familiarity with deployment and development on public and private cloud Azure AWS OpenShift)
• Demonstrated delivery of AI projects implemented in real environments (production or production-like) such as:
  • GenAI-assisted developer workflows with measurable outcomes (quality/velocity/defect reduction) and/or
  • AI/ML capabilities embedded into product or operations (e.g. automated diagnostics anomaly detection intelligent triage or similar).
• Strong engineering excellence mindset: automated testing security-by-design observability and disciplined release practices.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with GitOps and Kubernetes platform components (policy-as-code secrets management progressive delivery).
• Experience with regulated environments and compliance constraints (PCI/GDPR/SOC2) and integrating security controls into CI/CD.
• Experience scaling test automation and implementing testing pyramids and coverage standards across multiple teams.
• Familiarity with internal developer platform concepts (golden paths self-service reduced cognitive load).
• Carvel toolchain (e.g. ytt kapp-controller) for packaging/config/deploy workflows
• Testkube for test orchestration and automation

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United Stateson a full-time basis. This position does not offer sponsorship for employment visa status or work permit now or in the future.

In return for your expertise we offer opportunities for growth career development and a competitive compensation and benefits packageall within an innovative and collaborative work environment.

Are you ready to help us transform the payments ecosystem To learn more about ACI Worldwide visit our web site atJob ID (Requisition #10330)

ACI Worldwide is an AA/EEO employer in the United States which includes providing equal opportunity for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities and an EEO employer globally.

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