Overview

We are seeking a senior, hands-on engineering leader who owns both the people development lifecycle (hiring, coaching, performance growth, retention) and the technical bar (architecture input, code quality, delivery excellence) for the teams of software developers across our fleet. This role blends line management, technical leadership, and strategic enablement. You will actively write and review code, set and enforce quality standards, establish growth plans tailored to individual engineers, and create the conditions for sustainable, high-velocity delivery. You will serve as a trusted engineering voice at the leadership table, shaping direction on technical strategy, domain & data model design, platform evolution, and cross-team problem solving.

If you enjoy building strong engineering cultures, making informed decisions under ambiguity, and rolling up your sleeves to prototype, debug, or unblock, while uplifting others, this role is for you.

What You'll Do

People & Capability Leadership

• Own end-to-end line management for a group of developers: coaching, feedback, performance assessment, compensation input, issue handling.
• Design and execute individualized skill development plans mapped to longer-term fleet capability needs.
• Drive retention through deliberate growth opportunities, psychological safety, and disciplined career pathing.
• Use mentoring (skill transfer) and sponsorship (opportunity creation) intentionally to accelerate growth.
• Hire for complementary skills; shape the overall competency mix (languages, architecture, tooling depth, delivery maturity).
• Build and sustain a culture of idea sharing, peer coaching, and shared ownership.

Technical Leadership & Delivery

• Act as hands-on lead developer: design, prototype, review PRs, debug complex failures, set examples in code quality and operational rigor.
• Set, communicate, and enforce engineering quality standards (testing depth, documentation expectations, observability, security hygiene, review discipline).
• Provide architectural steering—domains include monorepo strategy, data & domain model design, build/test pipeline evolution, internal developer tooling, and foundational platform components (e.g., CDK / infra abstractions).
• Perform exploratory prototyping to de-risk initiatives; hand off cleanly once direction is validated.
• Uncover and execute the invisible sustaining work (refactors, dependency hygiene, test hardening, instrumentation) that preserves delivery velocity.

Strategic & Cross-Fleet Impact

• Represent the engineering perspective in higher-level planning—connect product intent, technical feasibility, and workforce capability shaping.
• Balance BAU delivery with continual upskilling; negotiate time allocations with product owners to avoid long-term technical debt accumulation.
• Identify and address systemic issues spanning multiple teams: architecture gaps, tooling friction, skill shortages, quality drift, process bottlenecks.
• Make time-bounded decisions under incomplete information; communicate rationale and follow up with validation or course corrections.
• Earn and maintain senior leadership trust through consistent judgment, transparency, and technical taste. Coaching & Enablement
• Provide direct hands-on training sessions, pairing, code walkthroughs, technical deep dives.
• Curate learning paths tied to future strategic capability needs (e.g., monorepo workflows, modularization patterns, platform migration readiness, secure-by-design practices).
• Encourage measurable learning—convert abstract upskilling into observable competency shifts.

Must-Haves

• 10+ years of professional software development experience with a sustained hands-on track (you still code, review, and design).
• Proven experience directly managing software engineers (performance, career development, hiring, retention).
• Demonstrated success elevating team capabilities via structured development plans and coaching.
• Track record of setting and enforcing pragmatic quality standards (tests, automation, observability, review rigor, security hygiene).
• Ability to make clear decisions under uncertainty and articulate trade-offs succinctly.
• Excellence in stakeholder negotiation—balancing product timelines with non-functional and skill growth investments.
• Experience introducing or scaling metrics (engineering effectiveness, quality, operational health, skill progression).
• Comfort prototyping and then transitioning ownership to teams.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication tailored to audience (developers, product partners, senior leadership).
• Commitment to inclusion, equitable opportunity, and psychologically safe team dynamics.

Nice to Have

• Prior responsibility for shaping org-wide capability roadmaps (e.g., test strategy uplift, migration programs, platform adoption).
• Experience with internal developer platforms, build/test pipeline optimization, or infra-as-code (e.g., Terraform).
• Exposure to large-scale repository strategies (monorepo tooling, dependency graph management, modularization).
• Background in balancing regulated environment constraints with modern engineering practices.
• Experience applying sponsorship to accelerate advancement for underrepresented or emerging talent.
• Prior success resolving systemic cross-team architectural or process debt.

What You'll Get

• A high-visibility platform to shape the technical caliber and working habits of multiple development teams.
• A dual-impact role—building software while building people.
• The opportunity to institutionalize sustainable engineering practices that prevent future rework.
• Influence over strategic architectural direction (e.g., monorepo, data model evolution, platform abstractions).
• A culture that values thoughtful risk-taking, continuous learning, and transparent decision making.
• The satisfaction of seeing measurable uplift in both delivery outcomes and developer growth trajectories.

About Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. The Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, and individuals from more than 1,200 offices in 43 countries.

As a market leader, the talent and passion of our people is critical to our success. Together, we share a common set of values rooted in integrity, excellence, and strong team ethic. Morgan Stanley can provide a superior foundation for building a professional career - a place for people to learn, to achieve and grow. A philosophy that balances personal lifestyles, perspectives and needs is an important part of our culture.

Equal Opportunities

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunities employer. We work to provide a supportive and inclusive environment where all individuals can maximize their full potential. Our skilled and creative workforce is comprised of individuals drawn from a broad cross section of the global communities in which we operate and who reflect a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

What You Can Expect From Morgan Stanley

We are committed to maintaining the first-class service and high standard of excellence that have defined Morgan Stanley for over 89 years. Our values—putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back—guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser.

Equal opportunity statements and flexible work information can be found in the original posting. Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunities employer and supports flexible working arrangements where available.