Application Engineer, Aladdin Product Engineering, Associate

About this role About BlackRock BlackRock invests and protects over $14 trillion (USD) in assets for clients globally. Our purpose is to help more and more people experience financial well‑being. Technology plays a meaningful role in this mission, enabling scalable and resilient platforms that support retirement, annuity, and investment outcomes for millions of investors worldwide. We value diversity of thought and background and believe it strengthens our ability to deliver for clients while upholding our fiduciary responsibility. Team Overview This role is part of Aladdin Product Engineering – CXE – Client Life Cycle Engineering, passionate about MyLifePath, BlackRock’s retirement and annuity platform. The team owns the end‑to‑end engineering lifecycle for cloud‑native, enterprise‑scale applications, including building, development, testing, deployment, and production support. We work closely with product management, platform engineering, architecture, and operations teams to deliver secure, resilient, and scalable solutions for internal and external clients. Role Description The Associate – Backend is an experienced individual contributor responsible for crafting, building, and supporting core backend services within the MyLifePath platform. The position demands strong technical judgment and independence when addressing moderately complex challenges. Associates should develop technical plans, help improve engineering standards, and guide junior engineers. They work closely with product and platform collaborators to provide crucial business functions. Key Responsibilities Engineering & Delivery Build, develop, and maintain backend services and APIs for the MyLifePath platform with clear ownership Implement services using microservices and event‑driven architectures, aligned with enterprise standards Build production‑grade applications using Java (21) and Kotlin within Spring‑based ecosystems Develop and support integrations with messaging and event platforms (e.g., Azure Service Bus) Translate business and product requirements into robust, scalable technical solutions, including AI‑enabled features AI & Intelligent Platform Skills (Good to Have) Contribute to the delivery of AI‑powered features, including: Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns for enterprise knowledge and use cases centered on handling documents Integrate backend services with LLM platforms, embedding services, and vector stores in accordance with approved architectures Apply engineering guidelines to AI solutions, including: Leverage approved AI developer assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Windsurf) to improve efficiency while adhering to firm policies Quality, Reliability & Operations Define and implement testing strategies (unit, integration, automated) for both traditional and AI‑enabled components Participate in production support, incident response, and root‑cause analysis Identify technical debt, performance bottlenecks, and reliability risks, driving continuous improvement Apply secure coding practices and resilience patterns to ensure platform stability Collaboration & Influence Contribute to technical build discussions, including AI architecture and integration reviews Partner with product managers, UX, and platform teams to build AI‑enabled user experiences Mentor junior engineers through code reviews and technical mentorship Communicate technical trade‑offs clearly to cross‑functional collaborators Required Technical Skills Core Backend Engineering Strong backend development experience using Java 21 and/or Kotlin Deep working knowledge of the Spring ecosystem (Spring Boot, Spring Data, Spring Security, Spring Integration) Experience crafting and consuming RESTful APIs and event‑driven services Proficiency with JUnit and automated testing practices Experience with Azure Cosmos DB, MS SQL, or similar data stores Hands‑on experience with Docker and Kubernetes Strong understanding of cloud‑native and di ... (truncated, view full listing at source)