Application Engineer - IV

About Vanguard

Founded in 1975, Vanguard is one of the world's leading investment management companies. The firm offers investments, advice, and retirement services to tens of millions of individual investors around the globe-directly, through workplace plans, and through financial intermediaries.

Vanguard’s India Office

Vanguard’s office in India is a significant milestone in our global expansion. We are committed to establishing an enduring technology center in Hyderabad, Telangana and are excited to be adding talent who will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobile, and cloud-based technologies that drive our business outcomes and deliver a world-class experience for our clients.

Role Summary

This role provides expert-level system analysis, design, development, and implementation of applications and databases, and directs business assessment and requirements analysis for hardware and operating systems, while architecting complex data integration and driving system performance and scalability improvements.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate closely with business users, product managers, and engineering partners - actively asking questions and clarifying requirements to ensure high-quality outcomes.

• Design and implement Python-based microservices on AWS, using event-driven patterns tied to S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, Step Functions, and ECS.

• Demonstrate expert-level ownership of data architecture, including, S3 buckets and Access Points, Bucket/object modelling and partitioning, DynamoDB and NoSQL data modelling, REST / GraphQL APIs, Encryption/KMS policies, High-throughput performance considerations

• Integrate S3 and DynamoDB with event-driven compute (Lambda), orchestrated workflows (Step Functions), and container workloads (ECS).

• Define and execute end-to-end testing strategies for event-driven systems, including contract testing, schema validation, replay/idempotency testing, and integration scenarios across multiple AWS services.

• Work with Avro for data serialization, including schema design and evolution, compatibility rules, and performance optimization using Python libraries such as fastavro or avro.

• Maintain engineering excellence through clean architecture, code reviews, robust documentation, observability and resilience practices, and operational readiness.

• Provide 3rd-line support as needed and contribute to continuous improvement.

Qualifications and Skills

• Minimum 8 years of experience in application development, system architecture and database management.

• Bachelor’s degree (B.E./B.Tech) or Master’s degree (M.E./M.Tech) in relevant fields such as Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.

• Expert-level Python development, including:

  • Object-oriented programming

  • Type hints and static analysis

  • Packaging, virtual environments, and dependency management

  • Concurrency (multiprocessing)

  • Deep testing experience using pytest, unittest, and related frameworks

• Deep hands-on expertise with Amazon S3, including:

  • S3 Access Points and fine-grained IAM controls

  • Lifecycle rules, storage classes, multipart uploads

• Experience working with NoSQL databases:

  • Design and data modelling

  • DynamoDB in AWS

  • Designing for efficiency and extensibility

• Strong experience with:

  • AWS Lambda (serverless patterns, event integration, concurrency & retries)

  • AWS Step Functions (workflow orchestration, error handling, compensating flows)

  • Amazon ECS (task definitions, service scaling, container orchestration)

• Top-notch end-to-end testing for event-driven architectures:

  • Contract testing & consumer-driven contracts

  • Avro schema validation and compatibility testing

  • Integration tests across S3 → Lambda → Step Functions → ECS pipelines

  • Monitoring and observability validation

• Avro expertise:

  • Schema design & evolution strategies

  • Efficient read/write using fastavro, etc.

  • Handling large datasets and streaming workflows

• Experience with cloud-native CI/CD, logging, and monitoring tools (Git/Bitbucket, CloudWatch, Splunk, etc.)

Location

This role is based in Hyderabad, Telangana at Vanguard’s India office. Only qualified external applicants will be considered.

Our mission

Vanguard adheres to a simple purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

Our commitment to you

Vanguard takes the same long-term view of your success-at work and in life-with Benefits and Rewards packages that reflect what you care about, throughout all the phases and stages of your life. Our Total Rewards programs provide you and your loved ones with wellness support for key areas in your life:

Financial wellness

We're committed to enabling your financial success and provide competitive offers and programs.

Physical wellness

We're committed to providing benefits that support your physical health and wellness.

Personal wellness

We're committed to providing resources that help support the full scope of your life.

How we work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for most of our employees (crew members), designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.