Principal Software Engineer

At Franklin Templeton, we believe success is built through powerful partnerships. As a forward thinking asset manager, we build dynamic relationships with clients, understand their goals, and navigate complex markets together. We leverage cutting edge strategies and deep insights to unlock opportunities for long term wealth creation. Our talented, global teams bring expertise that is both broad and unique. From our welcoming, inclusive, and supportive culture to our globally diverse business, we offer opportunities not only to help you reach your potential, but also to contribute to our clients’ success. About the Department Part of Global Sales Technology, we support Wealth and Institutional distribution teams globally. We own and evolve CRM (Microsoft Dynamics) and AI-enabled workflow platforms used by sales and client-facing teams, driving sales productivity, client insight, and digital enablement at scale. We work through Agile, product-aligned PODs, partnering closely with business, data, and AI teams to deliver end-to-end solutions. Our approach combines strong governance and engineering discipline with rapid iteration as we expand AI-driven capabilities. Our globally distributed team of engineers, platform specialists, and product-aligned resources values ownership, simplicity, and outcome-driven delivery. Team members are encouraged to develop their technical and leadership skills as the platform and team evolve. Job Overview This role is part of our senior engineering leadership as we scale CRM and AI-enabled platforms. We need a senior technical leader who can set direction, raise engineering standards, and lead the design of scalable solutions across the estate. The role focuses on shaping architecture, designing robust solutions, and guiding implementation across Microsoft Dynamics, Azure, and emerging AI capabilities. It spans both established platforms and newer innovation areas, connecting CRM workflows with intelligent, insight-led experiences through strong technical judgement and engineering discipline. Success in this role improves sales effectiveness, accelerates delivery of resilient and scalable solutions, and helps shape the shift to AI-enabled sales and service. The work directly influences platform direction, engineering quality, client engagement, and growth across our distribution teams. AI Collaborator Acts as an AI-enabled collaborator in system design and architecture, proactively identifying opportunities where AI can enhance product capabilities, decision intelligence, and user experience not just accelerate development tasks. Applies pragmatic judgment in balancing AI-assisted and traditional approaches, evaluating trade-offs to ensure solutions remain scalable, reliable, and aligned with business and operational goals. Continuously identifies and optimizes repetitive, manual, or error-prone workflows by embedding AI-driven capabilities such as intelligent code reviews, automated testing, contextual alerting, and adaptive documentation, enabling higher team efficiency and quality. Leverages advanced prompt engineering and AI interaction techniques to address complex, ambiguous, and domain-specific challenges, effectively guiding AI systems to produce actionable and reliable outcomes. Collaborates closely with cross-functional teams as an AI enabler, helping engineers, product managers, and stakeholders integrate AI into their workflows and decision-making processes. How you will add value Lead the technical design and implementation of core platform capabilities across Dynamics 365, Azure services, and API-driven integrations, ensuring alignment to architectural standards and long-term platform strategy. Own the design of CRM customizations, backend services, and reusable platform components that improve scalability, maintainability, and consistency across the engineering estate. Drive engineering quality and platform reliability through strong practices in observability, incident management, automated testing, code quality, secure delivery, and CI/CD. Lead complex CRM workflow enhancements, AI-enabled capabilities, platform modernization, integrations, and migration initiatives, balancing near-term delivery with long-term technical sustainability. Shape and advance capabilities within the Intelligence Hub, helping define how AI-enabled services are integrated into sales and service workflows in a secure, practical, and scalable way. Partner with product owners, architects, and business stakeholders to shape requirements, challenge assumptions, and translate business needs into scalable technical solutions and implementation approaches. Provide technical leadership across data, AI, engineering, and architecture teams to align design decisions, unblock delivery, and ensure coherent end-to-end solutions across platforms. Mentor and develop more junior engineers through technical coaching, thoughtful code reviews, design guidance, and day-to-day support that raises engineering capability and standards across the team. Promote engineering excellence by setting best practices, improving design and code review discipline, and helping build the technical growth path for engineers across the team. What will help you be successful in this role Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Significant experience in software engineering, Msft Dynamics 365 platform development, and enterprise delivery, with a track record of leading complex technical solutions across systems, teams, and business domains. Strong command of modern engineering frameworks, languages, and integration approaches, including React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Azure Functions and .NET/C#, with the ability to make sound technical trade-offs across front-end, backend, and platform layers. Strong experience with Power Platform and applied AI capabilities, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Copilot Studio, or related tools, with the judgement to use them appropriately within secure, scalable enterprise solutions. Strong experience with cloud-native engineering in Azure, including services for integration, application hosting, scalability, resilience, and secure enterprise operations. Strong understanding of CRM data models, business process automation, and sales domain workflows, including client and product hierarchies, relationship models, and activity tracking across integrated platforms. Strong understanding of CI/CD, GitLab, governance, security, and compliance considerations in enterprise platforms. Strong communication, collaboration, and principal-level technical leadership skills, including architecture guidance, high-quality code and design reviews, mentoring of junior engineers, and the ability to influence technical direction across Agile, product-aligned teams. Nice to have skills Strong prompt engineering skills, evaluation & testing, guardrails, and observability of model performance and usage. Work Schedule & Location This role will work a hybrid schedule 3 days/week in our Philadelphia office Franklin Templeton offers employees a competitive and valuable range of total rewards – monetary and non-monetary – designed to support their well-being and recognize their time, talents, and results. Along with base compensation, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, a 401(k) plan with a generous match, and recognition rewards. We also offer a comprehensive benefits package, which includes a range of competitive healthcare options, insurance, and disability benefits, employee stock investment program, learning resources, career development programs, reimbursement for certain education expenses, paid time off (vacation / holidays / sick / leave / parental & caregiving leave / bereavement / volunteering / floating holidays) and a motivational wellbeing program. We expect the annual salary for this position to range between $180,200 - $212,100, depending on location and level of relevant experience, plus discretionary bonus. At Franklin Templeton, we believe your benefits should support your life, your goals, and your future. That’s why we offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package designed to help you thrive both personally and professionally. Highlights of our benefits include: - Paid Time Off : Three weeks of PTO in your first year - Health Coverage : Competitive medical, dental, and vision insurance to support your well-being - Retirement Savings : 401(k) plan with an 85% company match on pre-tax and/or Roth contributions, up to IRS limits - Equity & Investing : Employee Stock Investment Plan (ESIP) with discounted share purchase opportunities - Learning Education Assistance Program (LEAP) : To support your ongoing growth and career advancement - Employee Investment Benefits : Opportunity to purchase company funds with no sales charge Franklin Templeton is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees, and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to ancestry, age, color, disability, genetic information, gender, gender identity, or gender expression, marital status, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law, ordinance, or regulation.