IT Area Lead CoE AI TechNL

We are TECH NL. We drive sustainable progress for all, powered by technology.

Our purpose is to serve our customers in the best possible way by creating reliable, secure, scalable, and responsible digital capabilities.

Artificial Intelligence is becoming a structural capability in how ING designs, builds and governs software delivery. AI-assisted and agentic workflows are changing the software development lifecycle and creating the opportunity to move from today’s human-only delivery model towards an AI-supported, and over time more AI-native, delivery model.

Beyond AI for software development, ING NL is also seeing increasing adoption of AI solutions across business and operational domains. As AI becomes embedded in more processes and products, there is a growing need to ensure implementation is aligned, secure, scalable and compliant. This creates an opportunity to establish clear governance, common standards and effective orchestration across AI initiatives within ING Netherlands

The role

We are looking for a technology leader to become IT Area Lead within the Engineering & Reliability domain, responsible for the adoption of AI technology and enabling of engineering execution of the full software development lifecycle as it becomes increasingly supported by agentic AI.

This role is about 1) making AI-assisted and agentic development workflows usable, safe, measurable and scalable within ING’s engineering environment, from pilots to controlled experiments to full roll-out. 2) Ensuring alignment and orchestration on both global and local AI initiatives, for IT and for Operations. This role will lead and orchestrate the implementation of platforms and software provided by global, in such a way that these are optimally implemented for Retail NL.

As IT Area Lead, you will lead an engineering team that enables AI-supported software delivery across the ING Software development lifecycle (SDLC). Your mandate is 1) to ensure that this new way of working, the AI agents, development workflows, engineering platforms and SDLC controls work together in a controlled way, with humans remaining accountable for judgement, validation and outcomes. 2) Act as a gatekeeper and orchestrate and control AI tooling implementation on a local level. As this initiative grows, the managerial scope could increase in line with the growth of the initiative pending where the needs are.

Roles and responsibilities

As IT Area Lead AI delivery within Engineering & Reliability, you are firstly accountable for the engineering enablement layer of AI-assisted and agentic software delivery. Secondly, you are accountable for orchestration and controlling of all local AI initiatives that might surpass IT for IT only. You ensure that ING can develop, test and scale AI-supported SDLC capabilities in a consistent, controlled and measurable way. After testing, you ensure that these new capabilities are rolled out in a scalable manner for whole of ING NL.

You use the development platforms and agent workflows provided by group. With group, you define the engineering guardrails, SDLC integration points and delivery paths that allow teams to implement AI-supported development. Product and domain teams remain accountable for their products and outcomes; your role is to make sure the development workflow is technically sound, controlled and reusable.

You will be part of the Engineering & Reliability leadership structure and report into the Engineering & Reliability IT Lead within Tech NL. You will lead a team of engineers and integrators who aid in the development and integration of AI tooling and this new AI native operating model. Based on the size and success of the new operating model, this team might grow in the future.

Key accountabilities

In this role, you will be expected to provide clear mandate, structure and engineering discipline for AI-supported development across the full software development lifecycle.

You will be successful in this role when you:

• Lead the engineering implementation and guide execution of AI-supported software delivery as agentic AI becomes embedded in the software development lifecycle.
• Align with ING Group on all AI IT for IT projects and support implementation
• Act as a gatekeeper for new AI tools to ensure safe and reliable implementation of AI for Operation tools on a local level.
• Focus the scope on AI for development purposes: requirements translation, planning, specification, design, coding support, testing support, review preparation and controlled handover into the regular engineering process.
• Own the NL technical integration of AI-supported workflows into ING’s development environment, including Nanites, GitHub, repositories, CI validation, pull requests, quality checks and engineering controls.
• Ensure teams use standard platform capabilities, agents and workflows, avoiding local workarounds, parallel tooling or human re-coding outside the agreed SDLC setup.
• Design the development workflow around the principle that humans judge, validate, decide and remain accountable, while agents execute clearly bounded development tasks where feasible.
• Define and enforce engineering guardrails for AI-generated or AI-assisted development outputs, including input quality, output quality, repository quality, traceability, reviewability and compliance with existing engineering standards.
• Act as senior point of coordination between ING Group, Tech NL leadership, domain CIO/IT Leads, Architecture, CISO/Risk, Data and Operations to align priorities, resolve trade-offs and secure adoption of common AI delivery standards.
• Develop and manage the area roadmap, capacity plan and budget input for AI-supported engineering enablement, including tooling adoption, platform integration effort, training needs, sourcing choices and measurable value realization.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for a technology leader who combines engineering leadership with practical understanding of AI-assisted software development, agentic workflows, SDLC controls and platform-based delivery in a regulated environment.

• 7+ years of experience in complex technology environments, with a strong track record of leading, coaching and developing high-performing teams.
• Experience with influencing and managing stakeholders at an executive level
• Proven track record of collaboration with NL Executive Committee on AI topics
• Involvement in strategic implementation of AI on both a local and global level
• Excellent knowledge of current AI development strategy within ING NL
• Experience with software engineering, SDLC design, development platforms, CI/CD, repository management, engineering quality, reliability and production controls.
• Strong understanding of the ING Retail Technical and Operations landscape
• Broad Understanding of AI in the context of Financial institutions and ING
• Someone who can lead, coach and develop a multidisciplinary engineering team, building the capabilities required for AI-supported software delivery.
• Practical and deep understanding of AI-assisted engineering and agentic development workflows, including how developers work with tools such as GitHub Copilot, Nanites-like platforms, and agents.
• Ability to translate a strategic AI-native delivery vision into concrete design, platform requirements, engineering guardrails, workflow controls and measurable scaling criteria.
• Strong understanding of risk, security, architecture, data and compliance considerations in software delivery, with the ability to embed them into the development workflow from the start.
• Ability to manage trade-offs between speed, developer experience, quality, control, cost, reliability and long-term scalability.
• Excellent (senior) stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align Tech, Business, Risk, Architecture, Security, Data and Group Tech.
• Strong learning orientation, with the discipline to start small, test deeply, measure impact and scale only where evidence supports it.
• Clear execution authority and the ability to stop or redirect work when AI-supported development does not meet agreed engineering, quality, risk or control requirements.

Rewards and benefits
We want to make sure that it’s possible for you to strike the right balance between your career and your private life. Find out more about our employment conditions.

The benefits of working with us at ING include:

• 25-28 vacation days depending on contract
• Pension scheme
• 13th month salary
• 8% Holiday payment
• Hybrid working
• Personal growth and challenging work with endless possibilities
• An informal working environment with innovative colleagues

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