Job Summary

This role could be based in UK and SG. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop down menu showing all countries, Please ensure that you select a country where the role is based.

The Head of FXScale, Markets Technology is accountable for defining, delivering and owning the technology strategy for FXScale, the Bank’s 24x7 global FX electronic payments platform. The role provides senior platform leadership across a distributed technology organisation, ensuring the platform is scalable, resilient, secure and capable of supporting demanding business growth, client experience and regulatory expectations.

The role requires leading and developing a distributed technology team, working hand-in-hand with the business to ensure the platform meets current and future needs, articulating a clear vision, managing multiple senior stakeholders and navigating the complexity of a large global organisation.

A critical characteristic of FXScale is that it operates continuously on a 24x7 basis, with no regular downtime or green-zone. Engineering for resilience, reliability, change safety, observability, incident prevention and operational readiness is therefore essential to the role. The platform’s volumes, profitability and hence criticality have increased very significantly in recent years.  Client’s expert no downtime at all and immediately escalate any perceived performance degradation or outage.  As a result, the team’s technical leadership is more important than ever to drive the platform forward:

The role will also provide visible senior engagement with business sponsors and technology stakeholders, ensuring delivery confidence, transparent risk management, effective prioritisation and continuous improvement across the FXScale lifecycle from strategy and architecture through delivery, release, run, resilience and decommissioning of legacy complexity.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy
•    Define, deliver and own the multi-year technology strategy for FXScale, ensuring the platform remains scalable, resilient, secure, cost-effective and aligned to the Bank’s FX electronic payments ambitions.
•    Own the end-to-end FXScale platform roadmap across architecture, engineering delivery, production stability, resilience, controls, simplification and lifecycle management.
•    Partner with Product, Operations, Sales, Trading and Technology stakeholders to translate business priorities into executable technology outcomes, balancing speed of delivery with resilience, risk and long-term maintainability.
•    Lead platform modernisation, reducing technical debt, simplifying the application estate and ensuring the platform can support increasing volume, geographic scale and client demand.
•    Set the target engineering model for FXScale, including standards for architecture, software quality, automated testing, release discipline, observability, incident prevention, operational readiness and safe change in a 24x7 no-downtime environment.
•    Drive disciplined adoption of AI-enabled engineering, automation and developer productivity tooling, ensuring measurable improvement in delivery speed, quality, resilience and control without compromising risk appetite.

Business
•    Act as the senior technology partner for FXScale business stakeholders, ensuring clear alignment between business strategy, product demands, client expectations and technology delivery capacity.
•    Provide delivery leadership for the FXScale product roadmap, ensuring commitments are transparent, risks are actively managed and outcomes are delivered with appropriate quality, control and operational readiness.
•    Ensure technology decisions support client experience, payment reliability, platform availability, operational efficiency and front-to-back process quality across the FX payments lifecycle.
•    Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across Markets, Operations, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Finance, Infrastructure and Architecture to support effective prioritisation and timely issue resolution.

Processes
•    Establish and continuously improve engineering, delivery and production processes for FXScale, including Agile planning, DevOps, release governance, change management, incident management and problem management.
•    Ensure all platform changes are delivered through controlled SDLC practices, with appropriate design review, testing, security assessment, operational readiness and evidence-based governance.
•    Embed automation across build, test, deployment, monitoring and operational processes to improve delivery throughput, reduce manual risk and strengthen reliability of the production environment.
•    Define metrics and management information for delivery predictability, production resilience, incident trends, engineering productivity, technical debt, capacity and control effectiveness.
•    Operate within the established T&O Quality Control model and Risk & Control framework, partnering proactively with Control, Compliance, Information Security, Architecture and Infrastructure teams.

People & Talent
•    Lead a globally distributed FXScale technology organisation, building clear accountability across engineering, delivery, quality, production readiness, platform ownership and business outcomes.
•    Develop a strong leadership bench across the platform, ensuring succession depth, clear ownership, effective delegation and resilience of leadership coverage across locations and time zones.
•    Attract, develop and retain senior engineering, architecture, delivery and production talent capable of operating and evolving a high-volume, high-availability, client-facing FX payments platform.
•    Set clear expectations for direct reports and their teams, linking individual objectives to platform outcomes, business priorities, engineering quality, risk management, conduct and leadership behaviours.
•    Coach and challenge leaders to raise standards in decision-making, stakeholder management, execution discipline, technical ownership and accountability for production outcomes.

•    Build capability in modern engineering practices, AI-assisted development, automation, observability, secure coding, operational resilience, incident prevention and production management.
•    Create a learning culture where engineers are encouraged to simplify, experiment safely, adopt new tools, share knowledge, address technical debt and continuously improve how the platform is built and run.
•    Actively manage talent pipelines, performance differentiation, development plans, promotion readiness and retention risks, ensuring high-potential talent is identified, stretched and supported.
•    Promote an inclusive, high-performing and psychologically safe team environment where diverse perspectives are valued and people are empowered to challenge constructively, collaborate effectively and deliver long-term outcomes.

Risk Management
•    Own technology risk management for FXScale, ensuring risks associated with a 24x7 global FX electronic payments platform are identified, assessed, monitored, controlled and remediated in line with Group standards.
•    Ensure the platform meets expectations for operational resilience, availability, recoverability, cyber security, data protection, auditability and regulatory compliance.
•    Maintain clear risk acceptance, remediation and escalation processes for platform vulnerabilities, technical debt, control gaps, service instability, capacity constraints and third-party dependencies.
•    Partner with Risk, Compliance, Information Security, Architecture, Infrastructure and Production Management to ensure risk and control obligations are embedded into delivery and run processes.
•    Ensure AI-enabled engineering, automation and analytics capabilities are governed appropriately, with controls for data protection, explainability, model risk, third-party dependency and operational use.

Governance
•    Maintain effective governance over FXScale strategy, architecture, delivery, release, production stability, control remediation and investment prioritisation.
•    Represent FXScale at relevant technology, architecture, risk, control, delivery and operational governance forums, providing transparent status, decisions, risks and escalations.
•    Ensure platform decisions are aligned to Group technology standards, architecture principles, sourcing requirements, change governance and information security policies.
•    Provide constructive challenge to business and technology stakeholders where delivery ambition, risk appetite, operational capacity or control readiness are not appropriately balanced.
•    Ensure governance evidence, platform documentation, decision records and audit trails are maintained to support transparency, accountability and regulatory confidence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree In Computer Science, Engineering, Technology, Mathematics, Finance or Equivalent Practical Experience.
• Extensive Senior Technology Leadership Experience in Banking or Financial Markets, with Proven Capability in Electronic Trading, Payments, High-Availability Platforms, Modern Engineering Practices, Production Resilience and the Global Team Leadership

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.