Finance Automation Lead

Summary

Join Pepperstone's technology team as a Finance Automation Lead and mentor a team of engineers in developing and implementing automation solutions. You will analyze finance processes, identify optimization opportunities, and collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements. Responsibilities include technology selection, workload migration, platform configuration, data analysis, and documentation. The ideal candidate possesses extensive experience in financial services, finance operations, and team leadership, along with strong technical skills in low-code/no-code platforms, data management, and SQL. Pepperstone offers a competitive salary, bonus scheme, flexible and hybrid working options, remote work opportunities, personal development opportunities, generous parental leave, and a collaborative culture.

Requirements

• 5+ years’ hands-on experience in delivering technology change initiatives in Financial Services of FinTech industries
• 7+ year’s hands-on experience in Finance Operations and / or technical roles
• 2+ years’ experience of leading a team of technical specialists
• A deep understanding of operational Finance processes such as journalling, reconciliations, pricing, rebate calculations, invoicing, etc. – particularly in the context of workflow automation
• Experience working in an Agile environment and in using tools such as Confluence and Jira
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Excel
• Strong proficiency in data modelling, process design and visualization
• Ability and confidence to provide thought-leadership on contemporary Finance Automation architecture and operations
• Critical thinking and commercial acumen, with the ability to frame operational risks and opportunities in terms of commercial impact
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate complex business needs into practical and robust solutions
• Strong communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively communicate with diverse stakeholders and explain technical concepts in business terms
• Proactive and comfortable in working in situations with a degree of ambiguity
• Confidence in having robust conversations with auditors and internal stakeholders
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration and influencing skills
• Proactive and self-motivated, with a strong sense of ownership and a commitment to delivering high-quality solutions

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a small team of Finance Automation Engineers (split between APAC and Europe) ensuring consistent and high-quality solution development and operation, ensuring our Finance business leaders and other stakeholders are having their needs met
• Analyse existing Finance business processes and identify opportunities for optimisation and improvement using low-code and no-code platform’s standard functionalities and configuration options, where possible
• Collaborate with business and technical stakeholders to gather, analyse and document functional and non-functional requirements for Finance Automation initiatives, ensuring that the solutions align with business objectives and our Data & Analytics Strategy
• Participate in technology selection, onboarding and workload migration for new process automation services or for enabling new service features
• Maintain and optimise existing bespoke Finance automation workloads and the cutover to enterprise solutions
• In conjunction with our Procurement function, manage licence, consumption costs, professional services and other factors influencing the Total Cost of Ownership for our Finance Automation platform and balance these against the non-functional requirements of our stakeholders
• Design and configure our automation platform, including user roles, profiles, permissions, workflows, case management, processes, AI tools, business rules, data flows, alerts, reports, and dashboards, with a focus on declarative solutions
• Support the overall Enterprise Application team to ensure configurations align with overall platform strategy and to escalate complex requirements requiring code or heavy customisation
• Perform data analysis and profiling to ensure data quality and consistency, and to identify opportunities for data optimization and performance improvement
• Develop and maintain clear and concise documentation, including process flows, configuration guides, and training materials, explaining the ‘why’ behind the solutions
• Collaborate with our People & Culture and delivery teams to support stakeholders through change management, including planning, testing, training, defect resolution and tracking ongoing adoption and impact of solutions
• Participate in user acceptance testing (UAT) to ensure configurations meet business requirements and function as expected
• Provide 2nd line support to troubleshoot and resolve issues with Finance Automation solutions in production
• Stay informed about the latest platform releases and features, particularly focusing on how they can be leveraged through configuration to enhance business processes
• Forming, engaging and retaining a high-performing team
• Measuring, reporting and continuously improving the delivery velocity and quality of your own and your team’s output
• Creating transparency of delivery effort and outcomes by aligning to best practices to tracking work in Jira and ServiceDesk
• Perform other responsibilities and duties periodically assigned by manager to meet reasonable operational and/or other requirements

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in one or more contemporary low-code or no-code development tools such as Appian, Microsoft Power Platform or Pegasystems
• Experience in contemporary cloud data management and development technologies such as Redshift, DBT, AirFlow and Python
• Experience in AI for process automation, particular Amazon Bedrock

Benefits

• Competitive salary structure including company bonus scheme
• Genuinely collaborative and friendly culture
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Remote working option - work from anywhere for up to 6 weeks per year, in addition to hybrid working as standard
• Ongoing personal development & learning opportunities
• 15 weeks paid primary carers parental leave & 4 weeks paid secondary carers leave
• 3 paid volunteering days per year & Workplace Giving Program