Compliance SW Engg

Location: Chicago, IL

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Key Responsibilities

Compliance Surveillance Technology Ownership

• Serve as a technical lead for eCommunication Surveillance, Trade Surveillance, and Employee Ethics Monitoring platforms, supporting enterprise compliance, conduct risk, and regulatory obligations.
• Partner with Compliance Technology Managers, Engineering Leads, and Compliance stakeholders to deliver strategic surveillance technology capabilities and platform enhancements.
• Provide technical leadership across multiple surveillance initiatives, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards.
• Lead solution design reviews and technology assessments for new surveillance use cases, data sources, and regulatory requirements.

AI, Machine Learning & Emerging Technologies

• Evaluate and implement emerging AI and Machine Learning capabilities to improve detection, monitoring, alert generation, risk scoring, and investigative workflows.
• Stay current on industry trends related to AI-driven surveillance, behavioral analytics, communication monitoring, and anomaly detection.
• Partner with vendors and internal stakeholders to assess innovative surveillance capabilities and rapidly validate value through proofs of concept (POCs) and pilot programs.
• Drive the adoption of advanced analytics and data science capabilities within surveillance platforms while ensuring governance and explainability requirements are met.
• Assess AI model performance, data lineage, model governance considerations, and operational controls impacting regulatory compliance.

Platform Integration & Vendor Management

• Lead integration efforts across surveillance platforms including solutions such as Global Relay, TradingHub, ACA, and other compliance technology providers.
• Design scalable integration patterns supporting structured and unstructured data ingestion from enterprise sources.
• Collaborate with SaaS vendors to onboard new capabilities, define integration requirements, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and optimize platform performance.
• Support vendor evaluations, product assessments, RFP activities, roadmap reviews, and technical due diligence efforts.
• Establish technical standards for vendor connectivity, API integration, data exchange, monitoring, and operational support.

Architecture, Data & Security

• Design secure and scalable architecture patterns supporting enterprise surveillance platforms and associated data ecosystems.
• Partner with enterprise architecture teams to define data integration strategies leveraging data mesh, event-driven architecture, APIs, and cloud-native services.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise security standards, including encryption, key management, data masking, access controls, and secure transmission protocols.
• Evaluate architecture impacts related to SaaS deployments, third-party hosting models, cloud security requirements, and regulatory data protection obligations.
• Support data retention, legal hold, records management, and audit requirements across surveillance platforms.
• Define technical patterns supporting high-volume data ingestion, normalization, enrichment, and reporting capabilities.

Data Quality, Reporting & Governance

• Establish data quality frameworks, reconciliation processes, and monitoring controls to ensure integrity of surveillance datasets.
• Partner with Compliance and Risk teams to define data governance standards, metadata requirements, lineage tracking, and quality metrics.
• Develop reporting and monitoring capabilities supporting management oversight, regulatory examinations, audits, and operational governance.
• Support production issue management, root cause analysis, remediation planning, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Ensure surveillance data platforms maintain complete, accurate, timely, and auditable records.

Delivery & Operational Excellence

• Lead technical delivery efforts from concept through production deployment, coordinating across engineering, infrastructure, security, and compliance stakeholders.
• Facilitate rapid prototyping and POC execution to evaluate emerging technologies and vendor capabilities.
• Create and maintain technology roadmaps, technical documentation, architecture artifacts, operational procedures, and implementation standards.
• Support governance forums, architecture review boards, risk assessments, and audit activities.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership to development teams supporting surveillance technologies.

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering, integration, or solution architecture experience.
• Experience supporting Compliance, Regulatory, Surveillance, AML, Conduct Risk, Trade Monitoring, or Communications Monitoring platforms.
• Hands-on experience integrating platforms such as Global Relay, TradingHub, ACA, Smarsh, NICE Actimize, Behavox, or similar compliance technologies.
• Strong understanding of AI/ML concepts, advanced analytics, anomaly detection, and surveillance use cases.
• Experience with SaaS integration architectures, APIs, event-driven architectures, cloud technologies, and enterprise integration platforms.
• Strong knowledge of data security, encryption standards, key management, access controls, and data privacy requirements.
• Experience with enterprise data governance, data mesh architectures, data quality management, and reporting frameworks.
• Excellent stakeholder management and vendor relationship management skills.

Leadership Expectations

• Acts as a trusted technical advisor to Compliance Technology leadership.
• Drives innovation through practical application of AI, ML, and modern surveillance technologies.
• Balances rapid innovation with governance, security, auditability, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Influences technology direction and vendor strategy across compliance surveillance platforms.
• Provides thought leadership on emerging surveillance technologies, regulatory trends, and industry best practices.

Salary Range:

$99,600 - 169,200 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Work Authorization

Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future. Northern Trust will not sponsor applicants for U.S. work visa status for this opportunity (no sponsorship is available for H-1B, L-1, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, F-1, J-1, OPT, CPT or any other employment-based visa).

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com, or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.