Associate Director, Mobile Engineering

Location: Phnom Penh

Job Type: Full-time

Job Sector: Tech, Banking & Finance

Salary Range: USD 5000 – 6000

Role Overview

As the Associate Director, Mobile Engineering, you will define and lead the bank's mobile application and digital development strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives and technology roadmaps. This critical leadership role spans architecture ownership, technology evaluation, and performance oversight for all digital and mobile channels. You will drive innovation, enforce engineering standards, and foster a high-performing team to deliver secure, scalable, and resilient digital banking solutions.

Who is This Role For

This role is ideal for an accomplished leader with extensive mobile app engineering experience, particularly in large or complex organizations. You are someone who thrives in dynamic environments, excels at driving architecture strategy, embraces new technologies, and is passionate about building and mentoring engineering teams. Experience within banking or financial services is strongly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and drive the mobile application and digital development strategy, aligning initiatives with business objectives, customer experience goals, and the enterprise technology roadmap.
• Own the target-state architecture for mobile and digital channels, ensuring scalability, resilience, and consistency with enterprise architecture principles.
• Evaluate emerging mobile and digital technologies and assess their strategic fit and adoption roadmap for the organization.
• Develop, roll out, and enforce architecture standards, guidelines, and frameworks across the mobile and digital development lifecycle, covering both front-end and backend technology stacks.
• Establish governance forums and review boards to ensure architectural compliance in all app and digital development initiatives.
• Define and maintain SDLC standards for design, coding, testing, release, and deployment of mobile and digital applications.
• Ensure consistency and reusability of components, APIs, and design systems across mobile and digital platforms.
• Guide and promote the adoption of AI and automation in app and software development, including AI-assisted coding, automated testing, and automated code review.
• Identify opportunities to leverage AI/ML to boost developer productivity, improve code quality, and accelerate delivery speed.
• Define, standardize, and enforce approved development languages, technology stacks, frameworks, and design patterns for mobile and digital development.
• Ensure engineering teams apply suitable design patterns to optimize maintainability, scalability, and reusability of code.
• Continuously evaluate and refresh the technology stack to align with industry best practices and banking regulatory requirements.
• Embed and enforce Security by Design principles throughout the app development lifecycle, including secure coding standards, threat modeling, and vulnerability management.
• Partner with Cyber Security and InfoSec teams to ensure mobile and digital applications comply with banking security standards, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.
• Ensure secure handling of customer data, robust authentication, and API security across mobile and digital channels.
• Enforce scalability and performance-by-design principles to support increasing user volumes and transaction loads.
• Define and monitor performance benchmarks such as app load time, response time, and crash rate, and drive continuous performance optimization.
• Design mobile and digital platforms for high availability, resilience, and disaster recovery.
• Lead, mentor, and develop the mobile app engineering team, fostering a high-performance, innovative, and delivery-focused culture.
• Manage engineering capacity, planning, and prioritization across mobile and digital development projects.
• Partner closely with Product, UX/UI, QA, DevOps, and Cyber Security teams to ensure seamless delivery of mobile and digital solutions.
• Define and track key engineering metrics, including deployment frequency, lead time, defect rate, app store ratings, and crash-free rate.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, audit, and risk management requirements applicable to mobile banking applications.

Requirements and Qualifications

• Have at least 10 years of experience in software or mobile app engineering, including a minimum of 5 years in a senior leadership role managing mobile or digital engineering functions.
• Demonstrate a proven track record in defining and executing mobile app and digital development strategy and architecture within a large, complex organization; experience within banking or financial services is preferred.
• Possess deep expertise in native mobile development for both iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin/Java), as well as experience with cross-platform frameworks such as React Native and Flutter.
• Bring strong experience with front-end and backend technology stacks, including API design (REST/GraphQL) and microservices architecture supporting mobile platforms.
• Have proven experience establishing and enforcing architecture governance, guidelines, frameworks, and design patterns across engineering teams.
• Show strong understanding of Security by Design principles, mobile application security (including knowledge of OWASP Mobile Top 10), secure coding practices, and data protection or regulatory compliance in banking environments.
• Demonstrate experience designing for scalability, high availability, and performance in high-transaction mobile or digital applications.
• Have experience driving the adoption of AI and automation tools within software development, such as AI-assisted coding, automated testing, and CI/CD automation.
• Possess strong knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and modern SDLC methodologies, including Agile and Scrum.
• Have experience with cloud platforms (such as AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerization technologies (including Docker and Kubernetes).
• Hold solid understanding of banking and financial services regulatory requirements (such as data privacy, PCI-DSS, and central bank regulations) as they relate to mobile applications.
• Demonstrate proven ability to build, lead, and scale high-performing mobile engineering teams.
• Exhibit excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills, with the ability to influence senior management and cross-functional teams.
• Hold at least a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; a master's degree or relevant certifications (such as TOGAF or mobile security certifications) are considered a plus.

About the Company

This organization is a leading provider in the banking and financial services sector with a strong presence in the Cambodian market. It delivers a comprehensive suite of personal and business banking solutions, placing a particular emphasis on digital innovation through its integrated mobile banking app. Recognized for its commitment to financial accessibility, the company serves both individual and business clients through an extensive branch and agent network.