[Remote] Lead Innovation Software Engineer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Fifth Third Bank is seeking a Lead Innovation Software Engineer to partner across various teams to define and demonstrate the future of the bank’s products and services. This hands-on role involves evaluating emerging technologies and leading initiatives to enhance product innovation and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Develop a strong understanding of Fifth Third Bank’s current and future-state technology and product architecture
• Help shape the bank’s evolution as a product-led enterprise built on a modern technology foundation
• Identify and prioritize opportunities to expand enterprise technology capabilities in support of customer and product innovation
• Partner with engineers, architects, and line-of-business leaders to envision, demonstrate, and develop new or improved financial products, business processes, and technology-enabled capabilities
• Lead end-to-end data workflows including extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) from structured and unstructured sources; perform quantitative and qualitative analysis; and develop interactive dashboards and visualizations (e.g., Power BI) to support decision-making, stakeholder reporting, and product insights
• Identify, evaluate, and benchmark fintechs and emerging startups by analyzing their technology architecture, product capabilities, business models, and financial viability; synthesize findings into comparative assessments and strategic recommendations aligned to enterprise priorities and market relevance
• Influence enterprise thinking on the future of technology across innovation, software development, fintech, artificial intelligence, and digital assets
• Lead or contribute to research and evaluation of emerging design, technology, industry, and market trends
• Translate customer needs, competitor activity, industry shifts, and technology developments into actionable insights
• Provide technical leadership, guidance, and mentorship to team members and partners
• Recognize meaningful patterns across industry, technology, and cultural change and explain their business impact
• Use systems thinking to connect ideas across products, platforms, teams, and enterprise capabilities
• Design solutions with the broader business and technology ecosystem in mind
• Apply structured problem solving and root cause analysis to address challenges and uncover new opportunities
• Recommend technology options and design approaches to senior leaders and key stakeholders
• Create compelling narratives, demonstrations, prototypes, and communications that bring concepts to life
• Share lessons learned, best practices, and new ideas across the team and broader organization

Skills

• Bachelor's degree in a STEM field or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
• 5+ years of experience in roles closely aligned to the responsibilities of this position
• Strong front-end development experience delivering commercial solutions using modern web standards and frameworks such as HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Angular, React, Vue, or similar tools
• Strong back-end development experience working with APIs, services, event-driven architectures using Kafka, databases, SQL, and modern data platforms such as Snowflake, with a clear understanding of how front-end frameworks integrate with back-end systems
• Deep experience with at least one server-side language such as Python, Java, Node.js, or PHP
• Infrastructure experience building, configuring, and supporting scalable web applications in cloud or hosted environments such as AWS or Azure
• Experience with modern server-side tooling, deployment practices, and hosting models
• Experience working in a mature DevOps environment using version control, CI/CD, and automated testing practices
• Proficiency with generative AI for productivity and full-lifecycle software development
• Strong working knowledge of SQL and modern data platforms (e.g., Snowflake), along with experience building and consuming data pipelines across both real-time/event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, APIs) and batch/integration patterns for one-off or analytical use cases
• Familiarity with end-to-end data lifecycle—from ingestion through transformation to visualization—including use of analytics and reporting tools (e.g., Power BI) and/or integrated data platforms (e.g., Dataiku) to support business insights and decision-making
• Strong understanding of agile product development and iterative delivery
• Working knowledge of blockchain, digital assets, smart contracts, and web3 technologies
• Ability to make sound design decisions and clearly explain the rationale behind them
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to build trust with team members, business partners, and customers and use those relationships to identify new opportunities
• Commitment to mentoring others and sharing knowledge, best practices, and lessons learned
• Ability to identify meaningful opportunities for change and translate them into effective design or technology responses
• Comfort working iteratively, making informed decisions with incomplete information, and adapting based on feedback
• Strong attention to detail

Benefits

• 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.

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