Senior Engineer: Financial Services

Overview

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes. We are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.

We are a collegial, collaborative firm where highly motivated individuals with an unwavering commitment to excellence receive the opportunity, support, and development they need to grow, thrive, and realize their greatest potential all while supporting the Firm’s client service principles of excellence, strategic partnership, commercial instinct, integrated strengths, innovation, and collaboration across our international firm.

If you thrive in a collaborative environment that values exceptional client service, initiative, professionalism, responsiveness, and adaptability, we invite you to consider joining our Accounting and Analysis department in our Chicago office as a Senior Engineer: Financial Services.

The Senior Engineer: Financial Services is a trusted technical expert responsible for the architecture, development, and stewardship of the Finance and Accounting department’s data, analytics, and reporting capabilities. The incumbent will design, build, automate, and maintain scalable business intelligence solutions that enable the Finance and Accounting department to operate with increased accuracy and speed, while providing insight to solve unique challenges.

The Senior Engineer will partner and work closely with existing Finance and IT leadership and subject-matter experts, including the Enterprise Data, FP&A, Revenue Cycle Operations, Pricing and Matter Performance, Rates Management, Billing Operations, AR, AP, Business Intelligence, Financial Applications, and Project Management teams. Extensive collaboration with these teams will be a key driver for success in this role. The incumbent will also serve as a technical mentor to colleagues and elevate engineering standards and practices, and proactively drive continuous improvement, automation, and governance across all Finance data products, services, and platforms.

Responsibilities

Essential Functions:

• Rapidly builds and maintains a deep, current understanding of the firm’s “data landscape” - the key systems and databases used across the firm, how they are used, their data, data models and data integrations, with a specific focus on Finance & Accounting data
• Uses this understanding and knowledge to anticipate future needs and guide solution designs
• In partnership with the Enterprise Data team, leads the design and development of scalable, reliable pipelines and ETL processes to manage the flow of data into, out of, and between these systems in order to:
  • Acquire and feed systems with appropriate data, using best practices
  • Maintain data cleanliness, lineage, and accuracy while minimizing the potential for errors
  • Join and relate data from disparate systems in an efficient manner
  • Provide reliable environments for modelling, reporting, visualization and analysis
  • Support a variety of reporting outputs, leveraging the Microsoft Power Platform and other tools
• Works with our Enterprise Data Architect in the design and implementation of new data models that may pertain to Finance & Accounting, and the other teams mentioned above
• Designs, optimizes, and provides governance of Finance data and semantic models supporting analytics, forecasting, and reporting, with a strong emphasis on scalability and maintainability
• Architects and tunes SQL, Python, and related data frameworks to build and optimize queries, views, functions, and pipelines, leveraging deep expertise in data schemas and tabular models
• Develops and oversees advanced Finance & Accounting and related dashboards and analytic applications in Power BI and other platforms, to enhance reporting, forecasting, and analysis capabilities
• Establishes and maintains standards for data modelling, DAX, information governance, deployment pipelines, and lifecycle management
• Ensures data is appropriately secured and compliant with firm policies, including access controls, entitlements, and auditability, and partners with IT and Financial Applications as needed
• Leads requirements discovery with senior stakeholders across the organization, translates business objectives into technical specifications and user stories, and prioritizes delivery roadmaps that provide measurable business value
• Provides technical assistance and guidance to others, both within and outside of IT, helping them to locate and access the data they need, exercising judgment to choose between self-service and more interactive solutions
• Collaborates with our Enterprise Data team and the Firm’s functional areas to build a strong community of expertise to support the development and delivery of the firm’s enterprise data strategy, including shared data platforms, master and reference data, metadata and lineage
• Evaluates and recommends financial technology, data, and analytics solutions which integrate data architecture, engineering, and business intelligence capabilities
• Builds proofs of concept and leads vendor engagements and solution assessments in coordination with Procurement, Risk Management, Security, and IT
• Mentors Engineers and Analysts, performing hands-on development for complex work while delegating and overseeing other activities to ensure quality, consistency, and learning
• Is accountable for data quality, reliability, and performance across Finance data assets and reporting layers, while establishing monitoring and alerting measures to ensure resiliency
• Participates in the evaluation of new financial products/applications deemed to be appropriate for the Firm’s business, as required
• Writes, develops, and reviews high-quality technical and functional design documentation, including data dictionaries and process maps, while developing best practices for the same
• Provides advanced application and platform support for the solutions and applications built by the Global Financial Technology & Strategy team, and other Firm financial applications as needed

Qualifications, Experience and Personal Attributes

Education/Training/Certifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Finance, or another quantitative or technical field required. An equivalent combination of education and/or experience may be considered in lieu of the degree when the experience has been directly related to the functions of the job.
• Advanced training or certifications in data engineering, cloud data platforms, data science, or analytics (e.g., Fabric Data Engineer, Azure Solutions Architect, Power BI) are preferred

Professional Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of progressive experience as a Data Engineer, Financial Analyst, Data Analyst, or similar role, with demonstrated ownership of enterprise-grade data solutions supporting Finance functions is required
• A strong track record of partnering with senior business stakeholders to elicit requirements, design scalable solutions, and drive adoption and organizational change is required
• Experience working with organizational data warehouses, including the creation and management of the data residing within them, is required
• Experience leading technical workstreams, mentoring engineers or analysts, and influencing cross-functional teams is preferred
• History of working with team members across multiple offices, especially in a global setting, is preferred
• Past experience with a law or other professional services firm is welcome, but not required

Technical Skills:

• Proficiency in all Microsoft Office products required, including Visio
• Deep expertise with enterprise relational database technologies is required, including but not limited to:
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Azure SQL
  • Performance tuning for SQL queries and procedures
• Extensive experience with enterprise data management, integration, and analytical technologies is required, including but not limited to:
  • Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and other ETL tools
  • Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
  • Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
  • Advanced Microsoft Power Platform experience
  • Power BI data modeling, metrics development, and information governance
• Experience with enterprise data warehousing platforms is preferred, including but not limited to:
  • DataBricks (including PySpark)
  • Scripting in Python, R, Power Query M, or PowerShell
  • Fabric Lakehouse / Azure environments
• Knowledge of law firm practice management systems (Aderant or Elite) is preferred

Performance Traits:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders at all levels of the firm and to external partners, and to communicate with various audiences effectively and in a professional manner
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities and able to approach complex systems with rigor and propose pragmatic, efficient solutions grounded in best practices.
• Strong organizational and time management, priority-setting, and troubleshooting skills, especially when responding to unanticipated business requirements, exercising sound judgment when operating under pressure in situations without perfect information or with shifting priorities
• Ability to work in a diverse team environment and effectively support the demanding needs of the Firm
• Able to effectively communicate and influence others outside the direct chain of reporting
• Must be a proactive self-starter who anticipates needs, exercises a high level of initiative, and demonstrates strong customer service skills and independent judgment
• Exceptional attention to detail, organizational skills, and the ability to handle multiple projects
• Maintains confidentiality, exercises discretion, and models the firm's values
• Thoughtfully challenges the status quo, mentors others generously, and knows when to speak up while demonstrating a high level of tact

Physical Requirements:

• May require travel to other offices as needed

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including medical/dental/vision/life/and AD&D insurance, 401(k) savings plan, back-up childcare and eldercare, generous paid time off (PTO), as well as opportunities for professional development and growth.

We are committed to providing equal opportunity and reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities and disabled veterans. To request an accommodation related to the application process or interview, please email [email protected]. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Mayer Brown works with select external search firms that have been vetted against our standards. Firms without a contract or agreement with Mayer Brown are not authorized to represent that they are working with the Firm, nor are they entitled to placement fees. Mayer Brown does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruiters. Submission of an unsolicited CV to Mayer Brown or any of its Partners or employees will not establish any right of priority for the submitting agency.

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