Stephen Leahy
Fairlie,UK
Summary
Software engineering leader with over 20 years of experience delivering technology solutions across global teams and in highly regulated environments. Combines hands-on technical leadership and architectural oversight with engineering management spanning multiple development teams. Motivated by opportunities to solve new and complex problems, with a focus on continuous learning, growth, and expanding technical expertise.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
5
5
years of post-secondary education
1
1
Certification
Work history
Director of Software Engineering
JP Morgan Chase, Asset & Wealth Management
Glasgow, UK
2023.02 - 2026.05
- Technical Lead for the IPB’s Tax modernization agenda
- Standardized complex tax withholding and reporting solutions across multiple legal entities and jurisdictions through shared architectures, reusable engineering patterns and strategic vendor integrations.
- Led the transformation of engineering teams from legacy technology skillsets to modern engineering practices and technology stacks.
- Drove significant reduction in operational costs across the tax ecosystem through targeted application right-sizing and the implementation of secure cross-border data disclosure strategies.
- Engineering manager for 20+ developers. Built diverse teams with high retention and a talent pipeline from interns and apprentices through to senior engineers.
- Asset & Wealth Management: International Private Bank (IPB)
Vice President of Software Engineering
JP Morgan Chase, Asset & Wealth Management
Glasgow, UK
2016.05 - 2023.02
- Lead Developer working across tax applications supporting International and US clients
- Drove significant improvements in engineering productivity and solution consistency through the development of a Model Driven Development framework, delivering a suite of tools for generating JPA, GraphQL, Avro libraries.
- Built an extensible, multi-jurisdiction exception management system enabling dynamic configuration of exception types and resolution strategies, improving operational flexibility and reducing delivery lead time for change.
- Designed and developed external funds processing application, integrating with Spain’s SNCE national clearing infrastructure to enable inter-bank fund transfers. Replaced a legacy, black-box system with a modern Java and Spring Boot application, significantly improving maintainability, reliability, and security.
- Led migration of applications to a private cloud platform across multiple regions (EU, US, and Switzerland), using a hybrid migration strategy of decommissioning, lift-and-shift, and selective rebuilds to rationalise and modernise the application estate.
Senior Software Engineer
Cisco Systems
Holytown
2006.08 - 2016.05
- Senior developer working on network management software for international organisations and service providers
- Part of team to win Cisco’s software quality award for our "IP Solution Centre" launch
- Addressed major security concerns within device management by developing encrypted communication using SSHv2.
- Responsible for creation and adoption of new CI/CD release process moving from legacy processes to modern deployment strategies.
- Excelled within the team solving customers problems. Tackled issues ranging from integration problems, bugs through to customizations and new capability delivery.
- Platform Sevices, Cloud Virtualization Group
Education
MSc - Computer & Internet Technologies
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow 2004.09 - 2005.09
BEng (Hons) - Computer and Electronic Systems
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow 2000.06 - 2004.09
Skills
- Technical Leadership
- Agile Methodologies
- Software Architecture
- Team Building
- Java
- Spring Boot
- Kafka
- Vendor Integrations
Certification
- Certified Scrum Master
- Certified AWS Cloud Practioner
- Sun Certified Java Programmer
- PRINCE 2 Practioner
Affiliations
- Sports: Tennis, Badminton, Football
- Running: London Half-Marathon 2026, Great Scottish Run (multiple years), Loch Ness Marathon 2010.
Timeline
Director of Software Engineering
JP Morgan Chase, Asset & Wealth Management
2023.02 - 2026.05
Vice President of Software Engineering
JP Morgan Chase, Asset & Wealth Management
2016.05 - 2023.02
Senior Software Engineer
Cisco Systems
2006.08 - 2016.05
MSc - Computer & Internet Technologies
University of Strathclyde
2004.09 - 2005.09
BEng (Hons) - Computer and Electronic Systems
University of Strathclyde
2000.06 - 2004.09