What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Software Engineer - Service Development position at Fifth Third Bank?
Make banking a Fifth Third better®
We connect great people to great opportunities. Are you ready to take the next step? Discover a career in banking at Fifth Third Bank.
GENERAL FUNCTION
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as the Tech Lead and senior individual contributor for a dedicated agile squad, while also providing strategic technical leadership across squads and domains. You will lead the design and implementation of complex, scalable software solutions, influence enterprise architecture, and mentor engineers across job families. This role blends deep technical execution with cross-team architectural guidance, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and engineering excellence.
You will collaborate closely with product owners, architects, and engineering leadership to align squad-level solutions with broader business strategy. In your secondary capacity, you will support initiatives outside your squad, contributing to communities of practice, resolving cross-squad challenges, and driving improvements in engineering standards and practices.
You are expected to operate within the organization’s risk framework by adhering to established policies, procedures, and controls. This includes identifying and managing risks appropriately throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring compliance with audit and regulatory requirements, and contributing to a secure and resilient technology environment.
Essential Duties And Responsibilities
Squad-Level Leadership & Development
TECHNICAL STACK & QUALIFICATIONS
Principal Software Engineer - Service Development
At Fifth Third, we understand the importance of recognizing our employees for the role they play in improving the lives of our customers, communities and each other. Our Total Rewards include comprehensive benefits and differentiated compensation offerings to give each employee the opportunity to be their best every day.
The base salary for this position is reflective of the range of salary levels for all roles within this pay grade across the U.S. Individual salaries within this range will vary based on factors such as role, relevant skillset, relevant experience, education and geographic location. In addition to the base salary, this role is eligible to participate in an incentive compensation plan, with any such payment based upon company, line of business and/or individual performance.
Our extensive benefits programs are designed to support the individual needs of our employees and their families, encompassing physical, financial, emotional and social well-being. You can learn more about those programs on our 53.com Careers page at: https://www.53.com/content/fifth-third/en/careers/benefits.html or by consulting with your talent acquisition partner.
LOCATION -- Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Fifth Third Bank, National Association is proud to have an engaged and inclusive culture and to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity in all employment decisions regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, veteran status or any other legally protected status.
We connect great people to great opportunities. Are you ready to take the next step? Discover a career in banking at Fifth Third Bank.
GENERAL FUNCTION
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as the Tech Lead and senior individual contributor for a dedicated agile squad, while also providing strategic technical leadership across squads and domains. You will lead the design and implementation of complex, scalable software solutions, influence enterprise architecture, and mentor engineers across job families. This role blends deep technical execution with cross-team architectural guidance, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and engineering excellence.
You will collaborate closely with product owners, architects, and engineering leadership to align squad-level solutions with broader business strategy. In your secondary capacity, you will support initiatives outside your squad, contributing to communities of practice, resolving cross-squad challenges, and driving improvements in engineering standards and practices.
You are expected to operate within the organization’s risk framework by adhering to established policies, procedures, and controls. This includes identifying and managing risks appropriately throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring compliance with audit and regulatory requirements, and contributing to a secure and resilient technology environment.
Essential Duties And Responsibilities
Squad-Level Leadership & Development
- Serve as the Tech Lead for a development squad, guiding technical execution and ensuring alignment with architectural standards.
- Design and implement scalable, secure software solutions using modern frameworks and cloud-native technologies.
- Deliver APIs and real-time data streams for domain-specific functionality.
- Develop microservices using Java/Spring Boot and infrastructure as code in AWS / OpenShift using Terraform.
- Create and maintain system diagrams and architectural documentation for squad-owned features.
- Ensure software meets code quality standards and metrics, with a focus on performance, security, and maintainability.
- Drive observability standards within the squad, including logging schemas, critical metrics, and scalable monitoring solutions.
- Lead the design and implementation of complex solutions across multiple squads and domains.
- Influence and contribute to enterprise architecture, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
- Rapidly assess and contribute to unfamiliar codebases or squads to resolve issues and guide teams toward solutions.
- Proactively identify gaps in engineering standards and practices, and work across teams to define and implement improvements.
- Pivot between squads and initiatives to provide technical continuity and architectural guidance.
- Define and evolve team-wide standards for AI-assisted development.
- Strategically integrate AI into development workflows, ensuring alignment with long-term platform goals (e.g., OpenShift, microservices, observability).
- Evaluate AI tools like GitHub Copilot for effectiveness in supporting architectural goals and developer productivity.
- Mentor leads and senior engineers on balancing AI assistance with developer growth and architectural integrity.
- Push the boundaries of how AI can enhance software design, development, and operational excellence.
- Collaborate with product owners, architects, and engineering leadership to align technical solutions with business strategy.
- Actively participate in agile ceremonies, release planning, and change management processes.
- Maintain effective partnerships with operations and engineering teams to drive service improvement.
- Maintain appropriate controls and documentation to ensure compliance with audit and regulatory requirements.
- Stay current on IT trends relevant to your area of practice.
- Assist with problem resolution for end users and customers.
- Create and update operational procedures for routine management processes.
TECHNICAL STACK & QUALIFICATIONS
- Expert-level proficiency in software architecture, system design, and integration patterns.
- Deep experience with cloud-native development in AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, ECS, DynamoDB, IAM).
- Strong command of Java/Spring Boot and frontend frameworks like Angular/React.
- Advanced knowledge of microservice architecture, domain-driven design, and event-driven systems.
- Skilled in Terraform, Jenkins CI/CD, and observability tools like Splunk and Dynatrace.
- Strong understanding of security, compliance, and performance optimization best practices.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.
- 10 years of software engineering experience with demonstrated leadership across squads and domains.
- Experience with 12-factor applications and greenfield development.
- Microservices development using Node.js/Express.js.
- Familiarity with HashiCorp Vault, Tomcat Embedded tuning, and OpenShift.
- Experience mentoring across job families and influencing engineering culture.
- AWS: Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, Certified Developer – Associate, and ideally one AWS Professional Certification
- None. This is a strategic technical leadership role without direct people management responsibilities.
Principal Software Engineer - Service Development
At Fifth Third, we understand the importance of recognizing our employees for the role they play in improving the lives of our customers, communities and each other. Our Total Rewards include comprehensive benefits and differentiated compensation offerings to give each employee the opportunity to be their best every day.
The base salary for this position is reflective of the range of salary levels for all roles within this pay grade across the U.S. Individual salaries within this range will vary based on factors such as role, relevant skillset, relevant experience, education and geographic location. In addition to the base salary, this role is eligible to participate in an incentive compensation plan, with any such payment based upon company, line of business and/or individual performance.
Our extensive benefits programs are designed to support the individual needs of our employees and their families, encompassing physical, financial, emotional and social well-being. You can learn more about those programs on our 53.com Careers page at: https://www.53.com/content/fifth-third/en/careers/benefits.html or by consulting with your talent acquisition partner.
LOCATION -- Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Fifth Third Bank, National Association is proud to have an engaged and inclusive culture and to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity in all employment decisions regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, veteran status or any other legally protected status.
