At Franklin Templeton, everything we do is focused on one thing - delivering better client outcomes. We do that by partnering closely with our clients, assessing their strategic needs, and identifying the solution or solutions that can meet the challenge. Over 9,500 employees working in 30 countries around the world are dedicated to servicing investment solutions for our clients in more than 155 countries. For more than 75 years our success has been a direct result of the talent, skills and persistence of our people, and we are looking for qualified candidates to join our team.

What is the Director - Product Development in the FTT AI & Digital Transformation group responsible for?

- The FTT AI & Digital Transformation group is a newly established team within Franklin Templeton Technologies, the Technology function within Franklin Templeton Investments. The core mandate of this role is to bring innovative digital investment products and solutions to market leveraging a patented and innovative digital wealth tech/fintech product - Goals Optimization Engine (GOE) - built with several years of academic research in mathematical optimization, probability theory and AI techniques at its core.

- The mandate also extends to leveraging cutting edge AI such as Generative AI in addition to Reactive AI to create value within various business functions within Franklin Templeton such as Investment Solutions, Portfolio Management, Sales & Distribution, Marketing, HR functions among others in a responsible and appropriate manner. The possibilities are limitless here and this would be a fantastic opportunity for self-motivated and driven professionals to make significant contributions to the organization and to themselves.

Job Summary:

- This is a leadership role in Product & Solution development that requires deep expertise in Optimization techniques, Advanced Math and requires hands-on expertise in Python programming as an Object-Oriented Programming language, a passion for Research, ability to understand underlying mathematical and stochastic models and an excellent understanding of APIs used in SaaS Product development. The person is expected to lead and manage a team of experienced and talented individuals with similar skill sets.

- The role would look at advancing the algorithm and create new investment product variants centered around usage of Dynamic Programming models and AI/ML algorithms such as Reinforcement Learning and Neural networks against a stochastic framework.

- The developed algorithm (code) would go into creating new capabilities for a B2B2C wealth tech product offered via SaaS, on-premises or offline modes.

- Additionally, the role would also have the potential to work on Generative AI and LLM models and other AI/ML frameworks to solve for specific business problems.

What are the ongoing responsibilities of a Director - Product Development?

Solution Design, Product Development, AI/ML Engineering (50%):

Core:

- Own and be responsible for the core product development and multiple (at least 10) product variants that are brought to market via various deployment modes such as API based, file based, joint offerings, third party integrations etc.

- Ability to guide and mentor a strong and motivated team that has a high level of domain and core product expertise with doctoral qualifications.

- Be accountable and responsible for the product development roadmap and manage dependencies and risks of various product releases.

- Collaborate effectively with Product Research and Product Management functions for roll out of product features, enhancements, product variants and bug fixes.

- Suggesting direct as well creative solutions to seemingly complex mathematical problem as per the need of the hour.

- Should be an expert level Python programmer and should be able to quickly review the code built by other developers in addition to contributing hands-on where required.

- Should be able to suggest best practices of coding and product development.

- Put into practice proven expertise in advanced mathematics, especially mathematical finance.

- Familiarity with working on cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS and Data platforms such as Databricks and SnowFlake.

Tactical:

- Ability to think through and construct the entire information flow end-to-end through the entire investor lifecycle as would be experienced by an end user using the web or mobile application.

- Excellent story telling ability or the ability to explain a complex concept in simple language and modulate the narrative as suited for different target audiences along with the capacity to dive into minute details.

- Ability to think from an end users perspective on what makes sense to the person as s/he navigates through the UI, but without necessarily having an active working UI

- Contribute to Architectural and Infrastructural discussions with clients and integration partners.

- Demonstrate structured thinking and exceptional problem-solving abilities.

- An ideal candidate would have worked on building B2B2C products and bringing them to market over the complete product life cycle.

Release Management, Vendor management, Continuous improvement, Contributing to research (50%):

- Actively participate in Release discussions, prioritizations, status reporting

- Manage a team of talented resources from the vendor side.

- Ability to create well-articulated presentations to explain the work

- Suggest and adopt usage of tools and technique to do a task more efficiently

- Take part in evaluating vendor products and ability to pick the latest and best in the market.

- Take lead roles in Internal team initiatives and suggest process improvements for the team as well as for the function.

- Participate in On-going Product Research and should be able to think out of the box to solve problems that are otherwise difficult to solve.

- Should have a research mind-set.

- Help and collaborate with the research team with ideas, algorithmic inputs, back-testing, proof of concepts and pseudo code where necessary

What ideal qualifications, skills & experience would help someone to be successful?

Education (or equivalent experience):

- Bachelor's and master's degree in engineering/Technology/Mathematics/Statistics/related disciplines from Tier 1 universities/institutes in India or abroad.

- PhD in a relevant discipline (Optimization, Probability, Quant Finance, AI & ML, Computational Mathematics, Econometrics Statistics et al) would be ideal but not mandatory.

- Relevant industry certifications such as CFA, CQF will be looked at favorably.

Experience Core Skills:

- 15+ years of experience in product development involving core programming responsibilities including several years of team management and leadership experience.

- Ideally from product organizations, should have worked in SaaS products using Python as a programming language within an AWS tech stack.

- Exceptionally good mathematical skills.

- Excellent Team player and demonstrate the ability to work in ambiguity and thrive in chaos.

- Self-motivated and driven with a heightened sense of ownership and accountability.

Experience Soft Skills:

- Proven ability to take initiative and work under pressure in a changing/growing environment.

- A passion to keep oneself abreast of the latest technological advancements and suggest ways to improve ways of working.

Exceptional decision-making skills: Ability to prioritize across needs given limited resources

- Thrives in a startup like environment: loves dealing with fast pace and changing needs

- Ability to create relationships both inside and outside of the Product organization.

- Superlative communication and consensus building skills.

- Work Shift Timing - 2:00 PM - 11:00 PM IST