Principal Application Engineer-Digital Platform Engineering

Navy Federal Credit Union currently does not provide sponsorship for this role. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future sponsorship.

We are looking for an experienced Digital Engineer to provide technical leadership and direction across Digital, with a focus on security, technology strategy, architecture, and cross-functional collaboration.

This role will serve as a key technical liaison between Digital and partner technology teams, including Security, Architecture, Infrastructure, and other engineering organizations. The individual will help drive alignment on complex technical initiatives, lead and influence security-related efforts, and provide technical insight that helps shape Digital's technology strategy and direction.

The ideal candidate will have broad engineering experience and strong technical credibility, along with the ability to understand complex technologies, guide technical decisions, communicate effectively across organizational boundaries, and influence outcomes. While a strong technical foundation is essential, this role is focused more on technical leadership, strategic direction, security, and cross-team collaboration than day-to-day hands-on development.

• Provide technical leadership and engineering insight on complex Digital initiatives to support secure, scalable, reliable, and innovative solutions.
• Serve as a key liaison between Digital and cross-functional technology teams, including Security, Architecture, Infrastructure, Cloud, and Engineering, to drive alignment and resolve complex technical challenges.
• Provide leadership and direction for Digital security initiatives, partnering with appropriate teams to identify risks, guide technical solutions, and strengthen secure engineering practices.
• Contribute technical expertise and recommendations that help influence Digital's technology strategy, architecture, engineering standards, and technology roadmaps.
• Analyze software applications, platforms, cloud capabilities, and emerging technologies to identify opportunities to improve security, reliability, scalability, and engineering effectiveness.
• Collaborate on technical and architectural reviews to assess the integrity, security, quality, and effectiveness of proposed solutions.
• Coordinate integration of solutions with existing applications and platforms and help identify and resolve technical dependencies and conflicts.
• Advocate for adaptive planning, evolutionary development, continuous improvement, automation, and modern engineering practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, architectural approaches, and industry trends and provide recommendations regarding their applicability within Digital.
• Contribute to a culture of collaboration by actively working across business and technology teams and sharing technical knowledge, standards, and best practices.
• Develop and recommend improvements to Digital platforms, engineering practices, security, reliability, and technology capabilities.
• Coach, mentor, and provide technical guidance to Digital Engineers and other technical team members.
• Communicate complex technical and security concepts effectively to engineering teams, business partners, stakeholders, and leadership.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Technical leadership and architecture: Ability to guide complex technical decisions, influence engineering direction, and provide technical leadership across teams.
• Application/platform security : Strong understanding of secure engineering practices and the ability to lead and influence security-related initiatives.
• Cloud and modern Digital engineering: Strong understanding of Microsoft Azure, APIs, microservices, CI/CD, cloud-native architecture, and modern application platforms
• Significant experience providing technical leadership and direction across complex technology initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate technical solutions and provide recommendations related to architecture, security, reliability, scalability, and engineering standards.
• Experience contributing to or influencing technology strategy, technical roadmaps, architectural direction, and engineering practices.
• Experience providing technical guidance and mentoring engineers on complex technology challenges.
• Strong knowledge of application and platform security, secure engineering principles, vulnerability management, and security best practices.
• Experience partnering with Security and Engineering teams to identify technology risks, guide remediation, and incorporate security into solution design and delivery.
• Understanding of DevSecOps practices and the integration of security into engineering and Strong understanding of modern application and platform architecture, including APIs, microservices, integrations, distributed systems, and cloud-native architectures.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure and an understanding of cloud architecture, security, scalability, reliability, and operational considerations.
• Experience with CI/CD and modern engineering practices using tools and technologies such as Azure DevOps, GitHub, Jenkins, SonarQube, Docker, and Kubernetes/AKS.
• Working knowledge of modern application development technologies such as Java/Spring Boot, JavaScript/TypeScript, Angular, or comparable technologies and frameworks.
• Understanding of observability, application performance, reliability, and production support principles.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively across Security, Architecture, Infrastructure, Cloud, Engineering, business teams, and other technology organizations.
• Effective experience working with all levels of staff, management, stakeholders, and vendors.
• Advanced relationship-building skills with the ability to establish rapport and trust and influence across organizational boundaries.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex technology and security concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Significant experience managing multiple priorities independently and/or within a team environment to achieve goals.
• Strong analytical, conceptual, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience working within banking, financial services, or another highly regulated technology environment.
• Experience with Azure capabilities and technologies such as AKS, Azure SQL, Redis, Key Vault, Microsoft Entra ID, and Application Insights.
• Experience with Java, Spring Boot, Angular, JavaScript/TypeScript, or other modern application development technologies.
• Knowledge of API management, Kafka or other asynchronous messaging technologies, and event-driven architecture.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with application security assessments, vulnerability remediation, security architecture, or security risk management.
• Experience establishing or influencing engineering standards, architectural patterns, DevSecOps practices, or technology roadmaps.
• Experience evaluating emerging technologies and conducting or guiding proof-of-concepts and technical assessments to inform technology decisions.
• Ten years of overall relevant experience.
• Understanding of modern mobile, web, backend, API, and platform engineering.
• Working knowledge of banking/financial industry standards and practices.
• Working knowledge of Navy Federal functions, philosophy, operations, and organizational objectives.

Additional Information

Hours:

• Monday - Friday, 8:00AM - 4:30PM

Location:

• 820 Follin Lane, Vienna, VA 22180
• 5510 Heritage Oaks Drive, Pensacola, FL 32526 
• 141 Security Drive, Winchester, VA 22602
• 9999 Willow Creek Road, San Diego, CA 92131