Senior Software Engineer – Identity & Authentication

The Role

In the European Client Identity team, we are building and operating Vanguard's authentication and MFA platform used by hundreds of thousands of clients across the UK and Europe.

This is a hands-on senior full-stack role with a strong frontend focus. You will take ownership of the MFA web application — an Angular 21 + NestJS app that is the entry point for all UK Personal Investor clients. You will work in a highly regulated environment where security, reliability, and operational discipline matter.

You don't need to be an identity expert on day one — but you do need Angular expertise, solid backend fundamentals, cloud experience, and a responsible, methodical engineering mindset.

What You’ll Do

• Help the team to take ownership of an Angular frontend, including onboarding and upskilling other team members on the codebase

• Build and evolve frontend experiences for login, MFA, and client authentication using Angular

• Build and evolve backend services that support authentication and identity flows

• Design and implement REST APIs using NestJS / TypeScript

• Integrate with identity and MFA platforms (e.g. Transmit Security, Auth0)

• Deploy and operate services on AWS, using Infrastructure as Code

• Database migrations and updates

• Manage vendor-specific software services running in AWS

Run and maintain services in production, including:

• Write automated tests and contribute to improving test coverage and quality

• Participate in CI/CD pipelines, deployments, and operational procedures

• Work closely with product and security stakeholders to translate requirements into

Technical solutions

• Continuously improve engineering standards, tooling, and reliability

What it takes

• Proficiency in Angular (v14+) — you will own and onboard others onto an Angular 21 codebase

• TypeScript across frontend and backend

• Experience with Angular component libraries and design systems

• Solid Node.js backend experience, with NestJS or Express for REST API development

• Understanding of authentication protocols: OAuth 2.0, JWT, MFA flows

• Hands-on experience with AWS (ECS, Lambda, CloudFront, S3, Secrets Manager)

• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation or Terraform)

• Experience with containerised workloads (Docker)

• Strong Git practices and CI/CD experience (GitHub Actions or similar)

Nice to have

• Experience with identity, authentication, or MFA systems

• Familiarity with Kong API Gateway or similar

• Exposure to Aurora PostgreSQL or DynamoDB

• Knowledge of microservices architectures

• Exposure to security concepts (IAM, encryption, networking)

• Experience with observability tooling (OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb, Grafana)

• Experience in regulated or enterprise environments

Our Tech Stack

AWS • TypeScript • Angular 21 • Node.js (NestJS) • REST APIs • Auth0

Special Factors 

• Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position

• This is a hybrid position and would require you to work in the office 3 days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday)

• This role includes on-call rota participation (up to 2 weeks/month, reducing as the team grows) and regular out-of-hours deployments (1–3 per week, ~30–90 minutes)

Why Vanguard? 

Vanguard is a different kind of investment company. It was founded in the United States in 1975 on a simple but revolutionary idea: that an investment company should manage its funds solely in the interests of its clients. 

This is a philosophy that has helped millions of people around the world to achieve their goals with low-cost, uncomplicated investments. 

It's what we stand for: value to investors. 

Inclusion Statement  

Vanguard’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”  

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard’s core purpose through our values. 

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard's core purpose: to take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.