Lead Innovation Software Engineer

Make banking a Fifth Third better®

Discover a rewarding career in banking at Fifth Third Bank. We are seeking a Lead Innovation Software Engineer to join our team, driving the future of financial products and enterprise architecture. This hands-on role involves partnering across Technology, Product, and Strategy teams to define and demonstrate cutting-edge solutions. If you are a builder, strategist, and collaborator with strong technical depth and a passion for human-centered design, this opportunity is for you. You will evaluate and apply emerging technologies, modern engineering practices, and new ways of working to accelerate product innovation and improve delivery, influencing stakeholders towards practical, modern solutions.

This position offers a unique chance to work on high-priority initiatives, gaining deep insight into the bank’s technology stack and delivery environment. By combining strategic thinking with real-world execution, the Lead Innovation Software Engineer transforms ideas into practical demonstrations, prototypes, and capability visions that shape enterprise direction. We are looking for a curious, forward-thinking individual passionate about emerging technology and fintech trends, including responsible adoption of artificial intelligence. Bring your creativity, analytical thinking, and strong communication skills to explore ideas, improve processes, and articulate possibilities through data and prototypes.

The Lead Innovation Software Engineer is responsible for risk management, acting as a liaison between Risk, Audit, and Analytic teams. You will ensure a positive customer experience by adhering to policies and procedures, identifying, assessing, managing, monitoring, and reporting risks within the Bank's risk appetite.

Essential Duties and 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.

Supervisory Responsibilities: None.

Knowledge, Skills & Ability Required

• 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.

Position not available for immigration sponsorship.

Total Base Pay Range: 82,100.00 - 172,500.00 USD Annual

At Fifth Third, we value our employees and offer comprehensive benefits and differentiated compensation. The base salary for this position reflects the range for this pay grade across the U.S., with individual salaries varying based on role, skillset, experience, education, and geographic location. This role is also eligible for an incentive compensation plan based on company, line of business, and/or individual performance.

Our extensive benefits programs support the physical, financial, emotional, and social well-being of our employees and their families. Learn more about our benefits on our 53.com Careers page at: https://www.53.com/content/fifth-third/en/careers/benefits.html or by consulting with your talent acquisition partner.

LOCATION - Virtual, Ohio 00000

Attention search firms and staffing agencies: do not submit unsolicited resumes for this posting. Fifth Third does not accept resumes from any agency that does not have an active agreement with Fifth Third. Any unsolicited resumes – no matter how they are submitted – will be considered the property of Fifth Third and Fifth Third will not be responsible for any associated fee.

Fifth Third Bank, National Association is proud to have an engaged and inclusive culture and to promote and ensure equal employment opportunity in all employment decisions regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, veteran status or any other legally protected status.