SVP, Head of Development Practices & AI Product Development Lifecycle

Lead with Purpose, Unlock Your Team's Passion

At LPL, people leaders hold the key to the employee experience - shaping culture, driving performance, and guiding individuals to new heights. Because when that happens, we all win - clients, LPL, and most importantly, our employees.

If you're ready to lead with intention and discover what's possible, LPL Financial invites you to apply today.

Redefine how enterprise software and digital products are created in an AI-accelerated world. As Head of Development Practices and AI Product Development Lifecycle, you will design the operating model, platforms, guardrails, and team structures that enable smaller, higher-leverage teams to deliver faster while strengthening quality, resilience, security, and accountability.

Job Overview

Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, this senior executive leader will define, lead, and continuously evolve LPL's target-state Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC). The role will embed agentic workflows, autonomous and semi-autonomous agents, and human-in-the-loop governance across discovery, design, development, testing, deployment, operations, and continuous improvement. Working across Engineering, Product, Architecture, Data & AI, Security, Risk, Legal, Compliance, and business leadership, this leader will integrate people, process, platforms, and AI into an observable, auditable, and continuously improving delivery system.

Responsibilities

Define and own the target-state AI-native PDLC, including its vision, principles, operating model, stage gates, decision rights, roles, success measures, and multi-year transformation roadmap.

Design the target-state team model for AI-augmented product development, including team composition, agent roles, human-agent collaboration patterns, escalation paths, pilot sequencing, scaling criteria, and migration from current delivery structures.

Establish enterprise standards for agentic development, including agent taxonomy, workflow orchestration, prompt and context management, tool integration, secure data handling, auditability, and human oversight requirements.

Build the PDLC platform and toolchain strategy with Architecture, Platform Engineering, and AI/ML teams across IDE integrations, CI/CD, test automation, observability, knowledge systems, and agent orchestration platforms.

Define and govern outcome-based measures for cycle time, release frequency, quality, defect rates, agent utilization and effectiveness, developer experience, cost-to-deliver, technical debt, operational resilience, and business value.

Partner with Product, Engineering, and business leaders to align PDLC adoption with product strategy, portfolio priorities, modernization objectives, and delivery commitments.

Embed controls with Enterprise Risk, Information Security, Compliance, Legal, Privacy, and Model Risk Management, ensuring responsible AI use and regulatory readiness throughout the development value stream.

Lead organizational transformation and workforce evolution, including role redesign, skills development, hiring strategy, change leadership, performance expectations, coaching, and adoption support for AI-augmented teams.

Establish governance and executive reporting for PDLC maturity, adoption, exceptions, risks, investment needs, and realized value; advise senior leadership on technology strategy, organizational design, and competitive implications.

Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing leadership team responsible for PDLC strategy, platform enablement, transformation delivery, engineering excellence, and developer experience.

What are we looking for?

We're looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness , act with integrity , and are driven to help our clients succeed . We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.

15 or more years of progressive leadership experience spanning software engineering, product development, platform engineering, or enterprise technology transformation in large, complex organizations.

Proven success leading enterprise-scale delivery transformation, including modern PDLC/SDLC design, DevOps, CI/CD, platform engineering, shift-left quality, operating-model redesign, or product-led delivery.

Demonstrated production experience with AI-assisted and agentic development, including large language model coding assistants, agent frameworks, workflow automation, retrieval-augmented generation or knowledge systems, and human oversight.

Experience embedding security, privacy, compliance, risk, and audit controls into technology delivery within a regulated or similarly control-intensive environment.

Core Competencies

Executive leadership, enterprise influence, strategic planning, and technology investment prioritization

End-to-end PDLC design, DevOps, platform engineering, developer experience, quality engineering, and continuous delivery

AI-native software development, agent orchestration, prompt and context engineering, automation, and responsible AI governance

Team topology, operating-model design, workforce transformation, and change leadership

Executive communication, cross-functional partnership, engineering metrics, and outcome-based accountability

Preferences

Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Business Administration, or a related discipline.

Experience in financial services, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry, with direct exposure to secure software development, model risk, privacy, audit, and operational resilience requirements.

Cloud, architecture, agile, or DevOps credentials such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Solutions Architect; Certified Scrum Professional; SAFe Practice Consultant; or DevOps Institute certification.

Pay Range:

$240,000.00 - $290,000.00

Actual base salary varies based on factors, including but not limited to, relevant skill, prior experience, education, base salary of internal peers, demonstrated performance, and geographic location. Additionally, LPL Total Rewards package is highly competitive, designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play – such as 401K matching, health benefits, employee stock options, paid time off, volunteer time off, and more. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that LPL has to offer!

Company Overview:

LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA) is among the fastest growing wealth management firms in the U.S. As a leader in the financial advisor-mediated marketplace(6) , LPL supports over 32,000 financial advisors and the wealth management practices of approximately 1,100 financial institutions, servicing and custodying approximately $2.3 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets on behalf of approximately 8 million Americans. The firm provides a wide range of advisor affiliation models, investment solutions, fintech tools and practice management services, ensuring that advisors and institutions have the flexibility to choose the business model, services, and technology resources they need to run thriving businesses. For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl.com.

At LPL, independence means that advisors and institution leaders have the freedom they deserve to choose the business model, services, and technology resources that allow them to run a thriving business. They have the flexibility to do business their way. And they have the freedom to manage their client relationships, because they know their clients best. Simply put, we take care of our advisors and institutions, so they can take care of their clients.

For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl