Principal - Systems Engineer

Ally and Your Career
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

Seeking a Principal – System Engineer to join our team to support the organization’s Federal Reserve and SEC platforms. This is a high visibility role within a regulated environment offering exposure to complex reporting programs across an intricate data ecosystem. The role is responsible for the administration, configuration, and ongoing support of the Nasdaq Axiom (AxiomSL) and Workiva SEC applications used to produce financial submissions to the organization’s governing bodies. The engineer will partner closely with Business, Technology, and Risk teams to maintain platform stability, onboard new reporting requirements, and support data integration across upstream source systems in an Agile environment. Day-to-day responsibilities include troubleshooting data pipeline failures, managing release management activities, and implementing configuration changes in response to regulatory rule updates. The role requires financial reporting fluency, strong devsecops acumen, and pipeline management knowledge, plus prior experience in end-to-end data processing and transformation.



The Work Itself

• Manage environment consistency across QA, UAT, and production tiers, including data refreshes and pre-release configuration validation
• Monitor and validate scheduled batch runs for Federal Reserve and SEC submissions, reconciling output against upstream sources
• Triage and resolve data pipeline failures across AWS-based ETL workflows feeding AxiomSL and Workiva ahead of regulatory filing deadlines
• Implement AxiomSL configuration changes in response to regulatory rule updates including Basel III, LCR, and FR Y-series requirements
• Coordinate platform releases and vendor patches across QA, UAT, and production environments with minimal disruption to active reporting cycles
• Partner with Business, Risk, and Technology teams in daily Agile ceremonies to prioritize and size incoming regulatory change requests
• Maintain data lineage and traceability documentation from source systems to final report output in alignment with enterprise governance and audi standards
• Identify and drive process optimization opportunities across reporting workflows, targeting reductions in manual effort, cycle time, and recurring failure patterns
• Evaluate platform capabilities and tooling gaps to propose automation or configuration improvements that strengthen data quality controls and reporting reliability

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a systems engineering, application support, or regulatory technology role within financial services
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Finance, or a related field
• Prior knowledge with Nasdaq Axiom (AxiomSL) or Workiva SEC platform administration, configuration, or implementation or similar financial software
• Comfortable using SQL for data validation, reconciliation, and root cause analysis across large financial datasets
• Proficient in working with Snowflake and PostgreSQL for data storage, querying, and integration
• Familiarity with regulatory reporting frameworks including Basel III, liquidity coverage ratio, 10-K, 10-Q, and related disclosure filings
• Experience supporting scheduled batch processing environments and diagnosing pipeline failures
• Experience working with data integration tools and AWS based ETL pipelines that feed financial reporting platforms
• Knowledge in coordinating platform releases, patches, and vendor-driven updates with minimal disruption to production reporting cycles
• Experience with environment management across QA, UAT, and production tiers including release coordination
• Understanding of data lineage, data quality controls, and source-to-report traceability in a regulatory context that align to enterprise governance standards
• Ability to write and maintain technical documentation including runbooks, configuration details, and support procedures in adherence with audit and SOX guidelines
• Experience working in Agile delivery teams with exposure to Jira, Confluence, or equivalent tools
• Strong troubleshooting and communication skills with the ability to triage and resolve production incidents or escalate issues under filing deadlines
• Ability to translate business and regulatory requirements into platform configuration changes with minimal guidance
• Comfort in version control practices and change management processes
• Willingness to share your technical and organizational knowledge to mentor junior staff members.
• Ability to articulate complex concepts in a clear manner
• Ability to work and influence successfully within a matrix environment and build effective business partnerships with all levels of team members

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant experience
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Finance, or equivalent





How We'll Have Your Back
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.

Other Compensations: depending on the role for which you are considered, you may be eligible for travel allowances, relocation assistance, a signing bonus and/or equity.

To view more detailed information about Ally’s Total Rewards, please visit this link: https://www.ally.com/content/dam/pdf/corporate/ally-total-rewards-snapshot.pdf




Who We Are:
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.

Ally is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic disposition or any other reason protected by law.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if after review of the position expectations, you believe that you may need a medical accommodation to fulfill the duties of this role, please email hrpolicy@ally.com with details of your accommodation request.




Base Pay Range

$110,000.00 - $180,000.00


An individual's position in the range is determined by the specific role, the scope and responsibilities of the role, work experience, education, certification(s), training, and additional qualifications. We review internal pay, the competitive market, and business environment prior to extending an offer.




Incentive Compensation:

This position is eligible to participate in our annual incentive plan.