Associate Director | Front Office Trade Desk Applications

Job Description Summary Note: This position will follow our hybrid work model, we expect the selected candidate to be in office 50% of the total number of business days in a given month at one of the following offices: St. Petersburg, FL, or Jersey City, NJ. This role is not eligible for Work Visa sponsorship, either currently or in the future. Job Description Serving as a senior technology leader for Raymond James’ retail and institutional trading platforms, the Director will be accountable for the architecture, delivery, and ongoing evolution of the firm’s mission-critical trading microservices platform. This role combines deep technical expertise with strong execution leadership, owning both the definition of target-state architecture and the successful delivery of scalable, resilient, high-performance trading solutions. The Director will lead the transformation of legacy trading systems into a modern, service-based, event-driven ecosystem, while ensuring continuity, stability, and compliance across the full trade lifecycle. This individual will operate at both strategic and hands-on levels—defining architecture, driving roadmaps, and ensuring consistent execution of key initiatives. The ideal candidate is a technically exceptional, hands-on leader with deep trading domain expertise and a proven track record of delivering complex trading platforms. They will lead and mentor a high-performing team of engineers, architects, and leaders, fostering a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement. This role requires strong partnership across business, product, architecture, engineering, and operations to align priorities, drive outcomes, and deliver measurable business impact. Responsibilities: Own the trading microservices platform, including architecture, delivery, and ongoing evolution, ensuring alignment to performance, scalability, resiliency, and regulatory requirements. Accountable for delivery of key trading technology solutions, ensuring execution against roadmap commitments with high quality, predictability, and speed. Define and execute multi-year technology roadmaps, translating business needs into actionable engineering plans and measurable outcomes. Lead the modernization of legacy trading platforms, driving service decomposition, API strategy, and event-driven architecture adoption. Provide hands-on solution architecture leadership, guiding design decisions across domain modeling, integration patterns, and distributed system design. Ensure systems meet non-functional requirements, including low latency, high throughput, resiliency, observability, and security. Lead and mentor senior engineers, architects, and emerging leaders, developing leadership capability and strengthening the organization’s technical bench. Establish and reinforce a culture of ownership, accountability, engineering excellence, and delivery discipline across the team. Partner closely with business stakeholders, product leaders, and executive leadership to prioritize initiatives, manage risk, and ensure alignment to strategic objectives. Oversee cross-functional delivery across engineering, QA, operations/SRE, and external partners to ensure consistent execution and operational excellence. Technical Skills / Experience: More than ten (10) years of relevant experience, including leadership of engineering teams delivering complex trading platforms. Deep expertise in trading systems and architecture, including order generation, OMS, execution flows, and post-trade processing across asset classes. Proven experience owning and delivering microservices-based platforms, including service decomposition, API design, and event-driven architectures. Strong background in distributed systems and data architecture, including transactional data stores, data consistency, fault tolerance, and schema evolution. Experience designing and delivering high-performance trading systems, including low-latency, high-throughput, and resilient architectures. Proven track record of end-to-end delivery ownership, from architecture through execution and production stability. Experience leading cross-functional teams in regulated financial services environments. Demonstrated ability to operate across strategic planning and hands-on technical leadership, with credibility at both executive and engineering levels. Licenses/Certifications: None required. Education Bachelor’s: Computer and Information Science, Bachelor’s: Data Science, Bachelor’s: Information Technology, High School (HS) (Required) Work Experience General Experience - More than 15 years, Manager Experience - 10 to 15 years Certifications Salary Range $130,000.00-$250,000.00 Travel Less than 25% Workstyle Hybrid The total compensation for this position includes base salary or wages, and may include components such as additional compensation (cash or equity), discretionary bonuses, or commissions. This position is eligible for a benefits package that may include medical, dental, and vision; life insurance; critical illness insurance and accident insurance; disability benefits; retirement savings; paid time off (including vacation, holidays, and sick leave); and parental leave. Eligibility for benefits and specific offerings may vary based on position and employment status. To view more details of the benefits offered, visit . At Raymond James our associates use five guiding behaviors (Develop, Collaborate, Decide, Deliver, Improve) to deliver on the firm's core values of client-first, integrity, independence and a conservative, long-term view. We expect our associates at all levels to: • Grow professionally and inspire others to do the same • Work with and through others to achieve desired outcomes • Make prompt, pragmatic choices and act with the client in mind • Take ownership and hold themselves and others accountable for delivering results that matter • Contribute to the continuous evolution of the firm At Raymond James – as part of our people-first culture, we honor, value, and respect the uniqueness, experiences, and backgrounds of all of our Associates. When associates bring their best authentic selves, our organization, clients, and communities thrive. The Company is an equal opportunity employer and makes all employment decisions on the basis of merit and business needs. #LI-NM1