Principal - Software Engineer

We are seeking a hands-on Principal Software Engineer to lead the design and delivery of enterprise-scale business automation and AI solutions. This role will identify high-value automation opportunities, architect intelligent workflows, and build secure, scalable platforms that combine software engineering, cloud-native architecture, RPA, APIs, and generative AI to drive measurable business impact.

As a principal-level engineer, you will provide technical leadership across strategy, architecture, implementation, and operational excellence while mentoring teams and shaping engineering standards for AI-enabled automation across the enterprise.

At this time, Ally will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The Work Itself

The Work Itself

• Lead the architecture and delivery of enterprise automation solutions spanning workflow orchestration, RPA, APIs, event-driven integration, and AI-powered decisioning.
• Design and implement intelligent automation capabilities using large language models, agent-based patterns, document intelligence, and retrieval-augmented solutions where appropriate.
• Partner with business, product, risk, and engineering stakeholders to identify high-value opportunities, define solution approaches, and prioritize use cases based on ROI, feasibility, and speed to value.
• Establish scalable engineering patterns for automation platforms, including reusable services, APIs, observability, resiliency, security controls, and CI/CD practices.
• Guide end-to-end implementation from proof of concept to production, including architecture reviews, code quality, deployment, monitoring, and operational support.
• Drive responsible AI and automation practices by incorporating governance, evaluation, security, compliance, and human-in-the-loop controls into production solutions.
• Mentor engineers, influence technical direction across teams, and raise the bar on software design, delivery excellence, and measurable business outcomes.

• 7+ years of relevant experience
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience, * 8+ years of software engineering experience, including deep expertise in designing and delivering large-scale enterprise applications and platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with automation engineering, workflow orchestration, API development and integration, and cloud-native solution development.
• Strong proficiency in modern programming languages, with particular depth in Python and Java, and solid software design, coding, and integration fundamentals for enterprise-grade applications and services.
• Experience building and integrating AI-enabled solutions, including LLM-based workflows, prompt orchestration, intelligent document and process automation, and practical usage of AI coding tools to accelerate development, code generation, refactoring, and engineering productivity.
• Strong experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure and modern architectural patterns including micro-services, serverless, messaging, and event-driven systems.
• Proven ability to establish engineering standards for testing, CI/CD, observability, resiliency, and secure software delivery in regulated or enterprise environments.
• Experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams and translating complex business problems into scalable engineering solutions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain architecture, tradeoffs, and delivery plans to technical and non-technical audiences.

Highly Preferred:

• Experience with enterprise automation platforms such as Robocorp, UiPath, Automation Anywhere, or equivalent workflow and orchestration technologies.
• Hands-on experience with agentic workflows, RAG patterns, vector stores, model evaluation, and guardrail strategies for production AI systems.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, API design and lifecycle management, and platform engineering practices that enable reusable automation capabilities across teams.
• Hands-on experience using AI coding tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, or similar assistants to improve developer velocity, code quality, documentation, testing, and solution prototyping.
• Familiarity with business process optimization, operational analytics, and value measurement to quantify automation and AI outcomes.
• Prior experience in financial services or other highly regulated industries is a plus.

Ally’s compensation program offers market-competitive base pay and pay-for-performance incentives (bonuses) based on achieving personal and company goals. Our Total Rewards program includes industry-leading compensation and benefits plus additional incentives that are designed to meet your needs and those of your family so you can get the most out of your career and your life, including:

Time Away: Program starts at 20 paid time off days in addition to 11 paid holidays and 8 hours of volunteer time off yearly (time off days are prorated based on start date and program varies based on full or part-time status and management level).

Planning for the Future: plan for the near and long term with an industry-leading 401K retirement savings plan with matching and company contributions, student loan pay downs and 529 educational save up assistance programs, tuition reimbursement, employee stock purchase plan, and financial learning center and financial coach access.

Supporting your Health & Well-being: flexible health and insurance options including medical, dental and vision, employee, spouse and child life insurance, short- and long-term disability, pre-tax Health Savings Account with employer contributions, Healthcare FSA, critical illness, accident & hospital indemnity insurance, and a total well-being program that helps you and your family stay on track physically, socially, emotionally, and financially.

Building a Family: adoption, surrogacy and fertility assistance as well as paid parental and caregiver leave, Dependent Day Care FSA back-up child and adult/elder care days and childcare discounts.

Work-Life Integration: other benefits including Mentally Fit Employee Assistance Program, subsidized and discounted Weight Watchers program and other employee discount programs.

Ally Financial only succeeds when its people do - and that’s more than some cliché people put on job postings. We love this stuff! We see our people as, well, people - with interests, families, friends, dreams, and causes that are all important to them. Our focus is on the health and safety of our teammates as well as work-life balance and diversity and inclusion. From generous benefits to a variety of employee resource groups, we strive to build paths that encourage employees to stretch themselves professionally. We want to help you grow, develop, and learn new things. You’re constantly evolving, so shouldn’t your opportunities be, too?

Work Schedule : Ally designates roles as (1) fully on-site, (2) hybrid, or (3) fully remote. Hybrid roles are generally expected to be in the office a certain number of days per week as indicated by your manager. Your hiring manager will discuss this role’s specific work requirements with you during the hiring process. All work requirements are subject to change at any time based on leader discretion and/or business need.

The Opportunity

At Ally, you get a startup feel, but experience the benefits of a company that has worked out the kinks and is fulfilling its purpose. We are always evolving and see that as a good thing. From owning our work to seeing its impact in the real world, our team is relentless in finding new ways technology can help make experiences better and help people. We are problem solvers, we value diverse thinking, we support one another, and we challenge ourselves to think bigger in the journey to deliver customer-obsessed tech solutions. To read more about what our tech team does, be sure to visit our tech blog at ally.tech, Ally Financial is a customer-centric, leading digital financial services company with passionate customer service and innovative financial solutions. We are relentlessly focused on “Doing it Right” and being a trusted financial-services provider to our consumer, commercial, and corporate customers. For more information, visit www.ally.com ., We all work better as allies. Join a team that thrives on doing it right - whether we’re helping people live their best financial lives or helping each other grow in our careers.

Share your resume with our recruiters so we can reach out to chat about roles that match your background and skillset.

We’re a leading financial services company serving over 11M customers through banking, auto financing, insurance and investment services. Our team’s approach of celebrating differences and lifting each other up is consistently recognized on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Here, you’ll find people who care about doing work that matters and making an impact in the communities we serve. Good enough is never enough for us - we’re always looking for ways to be better, together.

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