Validation Innovation and Automation Manager

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed.  We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.

Job Description

About the Role

We are seeking a strategic and technically skilled leader to drive innovation and automation within the Model Risk Management (MRM) function. This role will focus on enhancing validation, reporting, and documentation capabilities through the development and maintenance of reusable code libraries, robust data source connections, containerized environments, and automated model development, testing and execution pipelines.

The manager will also lead evaluation, selection, onboarding, and lifecycle maintenance of any third-party tools and platforms deployed by the MRM team. The team will also be responsible for supporting user onboarding and training across the validation teams for all internally developed or acquired tools.

This position resides within the Bank’s Second Line of Defense and supports the MRM program by modernizing validation infrastructure and processes to ensure compliance with regulatory guidance and internal standards.

Key Responsibilities

Innovation & Automation Leadership

• Design, build, and maintain reusable code libraries and frameworks to support model development, deployment and validation activities.
• Develop and manage automated data pipelines and containerized environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) for scalable data processing, model design and selection, and validation execution.
• Implement orchestration tools (e.g., Apache Airflow) to streamline validation workflows, reporting, and documentation.
• Lead the selection, onboarding, and maintenance of technology tools and platforms used in validation and other phases of model lifecycle.

Infrastructure & Governance

• Ensure model risk management processes align with internal MRM policies and regulatory expectations (e.g., SR 11-7).
• Collaborate with model validators to integrate automation into validation testing, documentation, and reporting.
• Support the development and execution of sound software and code lifecycle management practices, standards, and procedures.

Training & Enablement

• Develop and deliver onboarding programs for new validators, focusing on tooling, infrastructure, and best practices.
• Provide ongoing training and support to ensure effective use of automation tools and libraries.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the validation team.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with model developers, owners, and governance leads to ensure transparency and consistency in validation practices.
• Partner with model validators to assess and meet their technological needs in a timely and effective manner.
• Interface with internal auditors and regulators to demonstrate validation and documentation automation capabilities as well as sound control practices that underpin them.
• Contribute to reporting and presentations for senior management and risk committees.

Basic Qualifications

• Master’s degree or higher in a quantitative field (e.g., Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics).
• 8+ years of experience in data science, software lifecycle management, technology management, model validation/development, or quantitative risk management.
• Strong programming skills in Python, R and SAS; experience with Git, SQL, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure).
• Proven experience with automation tools, containerization, and orchestration frameworks.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to translate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services or banking, particularly in model risk or compliance.
• Familiarity with AI/ML techniques, their use and validation.
• Experience leading and mentoring technical teams.
• Strong project management and organizational skills.
• Knowledge of visualization tools (e.g., PowerBI, Tableau) and reporting automation.

Work Environment

This role offers a hybrid schedule with an expectation of 3+ days in-office per week. The position may require occasional travel and interaction with regulators and senior leadership.

If there’s anything we can do to