Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.
Job Description
The Head of End-User Engineering is a senior IT leader responsible for the strategy, architecture, and operations of all end-user computing and digital workplace technologies across a global financial firm. This role oversees multiple functions that collectively ensure a secure, reliable, and high-performing digital workplace, including endpoint engineering, unified communications and collaboration platforms, digital experience, and emerging AI-driven productivity solutions. The Principal, End User Engineering defines the technology roadmap for employee-facing IT services, aligning them with business needs and regulatory requirements, while prioritizing exceptional employee experience and robust security. This role leads and mentors specialized engineering teams (device management, collaboration tools, user experience platforms, etc.), driving innovation and service excellence in a fast-paced, highly-regulated financial environment. The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise in modern workplace technologies with strong leadership and strategic vision to ensure that all employees have access to secure, modern, and efficient tools that enable productivity and collaboration.
Supervises:
Leads and manages the following engineering functions:
- Endpoint Engineering
- Unified Communications & AV
- Productivity Applications
- Digital Experience Platforms
- User Productivity AI Solutions
Responsibilities:
The Principal, End User Engineering oversees engineering leaders in the following functions and is responsible for ensuring delivery in the following areas:
1. Digital Workplace Strategy & Architecture
- Strategic Roadmap: Define and maintain the architecture and long-term roadmap for the firm’s end-user technology platforms and services.
- Employee Experience Focus: Champion initiatives to improve digital employee experience, making technology usage as seamless as possible for staff. This includes integrating user feedback and Digital Experience Monitoring insights to drive improvements and ensuring that changes to the environment prioritize positive impact on end-user productivity and satisfaction.
- Policy & Standards: Establish enterprise-wide standards, policies, and best practices for end-user computing. This covers device configurations, software deployment, collaboration tool usage, and security compliance. Ensure that these standards strike a balance between consistency and flexibility.
- Business Continuity & Security: Collaborate with Cybersecurity and Risk teams to embed a security-first design in all end-user solutions. Mitigate risks by enforcing device encryption, access controls, data loss prevention, and Zero Trust network principles.
- Ownership of productivity applications across the firm. Maintains inventory of applications, version control, distribution and licensing of productivity applications in use throughout the firm.
2. Endpoint Engineering & Operations
- Enterprise Endpoint Management: Oversee the engineering, deployment, and lifecycle management of enterprise workstation platforms, mobile devices and any virtual desktop infrastructure. Drive standardized configuration management and use modern endpoint management tools (e.g., Microsoft Intune/Endpoint Manager, SCCM, JAMF) to ensure devices are secure, up-to-date, and performant for all users.
- Software Deployment & Patching: Manage processes for application packaging, distribution, and patch management across the user base. Automate software updates and patching to reduce vulnerabilities and downtime, coordinating scheduled maintenance windows to minimize business impact. Ensure that the firm’s software estate is compliant with license and security requirements.
- Device Lifecycle & Asset Management: Define the lifecycle for end-user hardware from procurement through retirement. Optimize hardware standards and refresh cycles to provide reliable performance while controlling costs.
- Endpoint Security & Compliance: Implement endpoint security measures to protect sensitive financial data on end-user devices. Regularly review and enforce compliance with regulatory standards (e.g., SOX, GDPR) and internal audit requirements for end-user systems.
3. Unified Communications & Collaboration Platforms
Collaboration Tools Management: Oversee the engineering and support of unified communications (UC) and team collaboration platforms used across the company. This includes responsibility for
- technologies like Microsoft Teams, video conferencing systems (Zoom, Microsoft Teams Rooms), enterprise chat, and any voice/telephony services integrated into the collaboration suite.
- Conference Room & AV Systems: Oversee the deployment and standardization of conference room technologies and audiovisual (AV) systems in all offices. Work with AV engineers to ensure meeting rooms are equipped with user-friendly, high-quality solutions that integrate seamlessly with the firm’s Zoom/Teams meeting infrastructure. Maintain a roadmap for upgrading legacy AV equipment and rolling out new capabilities.
- Enterprise Voice & Telephony: Govern the enterprise telephony environment, including cloud-based phone systems (Zoom Phone) and legacy PBXs if any. Ensure voice solutions are effectively integrated with meeting/collaboration tools and are configured. Coordinate with network teams on QoS configurations to prioritize voice and video traffic for clear, uninterrupted communication.
- User Adoption & Training: Drive user adoption of collaboration tools by working with internal Communications or Training teams. Ensure that employees are aware of available features and best practices for using conferencing, messaging, and collaboration software. Develop quick reference guides or training sessions for major updates, and champion a culture of effective collaboration (for example, promoting efficient use of Teams channels or Zoom conferencing for global meetings).
4. Innovation, Automation & AI Solutions
- Workplace Innovation: Stay abreast of emerging trends in end-user technology and assess their applicability to the firm. Lead pilot programs for promising new solutions and develop business cases for adoption of technologies that could improve workforce productivity or IT efficiency.
- AI-Driven Productivity Tools: Identify opportunities to leverage AI and machine learning to improve the digital workplace. Ensure such solutions are implemented responsibly, with appropriate data privacy and security controls in place.
- Automation & Self-Healing: Champion automation in endpoint management and support. Expand the use of scripts and tools that can automatically remediate issues on endpoints. Leverage orchestration platforms and AIOps techniques to streamline software deployments, device setups, and other repetitive tasks, targeting a more self-healing, self-service environment where employees encounter fewer disruptions and IT operations can scale without linear increases in staff.
- Innovation Culture: Cultivate an innovation mindset within the end-user engineering team. Allocate time and resources for team members to explore new ideas or improvements. Recognize and pilot team suggestions for new tools or process enhancements. Establish partnerships with key vendors and industry peers to keep the team informed of new product roadmaps and best practices in digital workplace engineering.
Education:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related technical field. Advanced degree strongly preferred.
Experience Required:
Required
- 12–15+ years of experience in end user computing and digital workplace engineering roles
- Demonstrated experience leading multiple engineering teams supporting end user technologies
- Experience managing enterprise workstation platforms and endpoint management environments
- Experience operating collaboration and productivity technologies at enterprise scale
- Deep familiarity with best-in-class enterprise endpoint management tooling.
Preferred
- Experience supporting global user populations across multiple regions
- Experience implementing modern endpoint management and digital workplace transformation initiatives
- Experience deploying AI-enabled workplace productivity tools
Technical Skills
- Endpoint Platform Engineering
Experience managing enterprise endpoint platforms including workstation operating systems, device configuration, and lifecycle management. - Application Packaging & Deployment
Expertise in application packaging, deployment automation, and enterprise patch management practices. - Unified Communications & AV Technologies
Experience supporting enterprise commun