Core Banking Specialist

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Description

WHO WE ARE

City First Bank N.A. is a mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) principally focused on a transformative impact on underserved, urban markets with the highest needs to drive equitable economic development. Our credit activities are purely commercial and focused on the following segments: Multifamily Affordable Housing, Not-for-Profit Finance, and Small Business Finance. As a depository and commercial lending provider with over $1.3 billion in bank assets as of December 31, 2025, our unified organization has over 100 employees in Washington DC and Los Angeles/Inglewood, CA.

ROLE SUMMARY

This role supports enterprise-wide initiatives across Core Banking and ancillary systems, including vendor evaluation, system integration, and product utilization to support the bank's modernization efforts. Working closely with Operations, Loan Operations, Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, and other corporate partners, the role provides project management, application support, system configuration, testing, procedure development, and implementation in support of the bank's growth. As City First Bank continues to expand its technology infrastructure to better serve mission-driven communities, this role ensures platforms are fully configured, effectively utilized, and delivering measurable value. The Specialist establishes governance, workflow documentation, and technical discipline that translate technology investments into demonstrable, mission-aligned return.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Partner with IT, Data and PMO to execute digital-core transformation, interface analysis, and data-migration projects.
• Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT), data validation, and production readiness for new payment deposit and digital initiatives.
• Analyzes, interprets, and recommends, through formal proposals to bank management, on new and effective ways to utilize and improve systems, processes and enhance the overall client experience
• Coordinate onboarding, due diligence and oversight for the fintech or program manager partners operating under the banks charter.
• Contributes to the design of scalable sponsor bank infrastructure, including workflow automation and interface governance.

Core System Configuration & Governance

• Analyze and support Core parameter configurations including fee structures, DDA/TD product controls, Account Analysis charge types, Rate Indexes, Loan Controls and system configurations
• Audit the full configuration environment against approved policy; document all variances and remediate in priority order
• Implement and enforce a formal change control process: no configuration changes enter production without documented approval, test evidence, and rollback plan
• Maintain a living Configuration Registry covering all core system settings with version history

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Tracking

• Gather and document business requirements, functional requirements, and improvement ideas for existing or new systems and processes
• Establish the bank's first formal TCO framework; capturing licensing, implementation, integration maintenance, support, internal labor, and opportunity cost across every major technology platform
• Produce an annual TCO Dashboard presented to executive management; flag platforms where cost-to-value ratio warrants renegotiation, replacement, or deeper utilization
• Support vendor contract reviews by providing technical utilization data and integration dependency analysis

Integration Architecture & Utilization

• Build and maintain a complete Integration Registry documenting all interfaces between CORE Banking and downstream systems (e.g. third-party platforms)
• Establish SLAs and monitoring protocols for each integration; support incident response and root cause documentation when feeds fail
• Identify and activate underutilized bank modules and features that the bank has licensed but not fully deployed
• Provide technical architecture guidance on all new integration proposals before contracts are executed
• Workflow Documentation & Staff Enablement
• Document current-state and future-state workflows for all major technology-dependent processes: fee assessment, account maintenance, transaction processing, treasury management, reporting, and digital onboarding
• Assign process ownership for each documented workflow; publish and maintain a Product/Technology Workflow Library in the bank's document management system
• Provide resources (from banking tech partners or directly) to train frontline and operations staff on core system functions; reduce dependence on vendor support for routine tasks
• Partner with the Digital Product Manager on roadmap decisions, upgrades, and platform governance
• Other duties as assigned

Requirements

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

Required Education/Experience:

• 7+ years of hands-on Core banking configuration and administration experience
• Experience with leading Core Systems: FIS Horizon, FIS IBS, Jack Henry SilverLake, Fiserv DNA
• Demonstrated experience managing core banking integrations and interface feeds in a production environment
• Working knowledge of bank operations: Loan servicing, deposit products, fee structures, GL mapping, transaction processing
• Experience implementing change control processes in a core banking environment
• Ability to translate technical findings into clear documentation and executive-ready communications

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES

Required Knowledge & Skills:

• Deep knowledge of core conversions, total cost of ownership, data mapping, and API/SSO frameworks.
• Proficiency with project management suites (Asana, Jira, Confluence, MS Project) and reporting tools (Cognos, Power BI).
• Experience collaborating across Treasury Management, Deposit Ops, IT, and PMO functions.
• Strong vendor-management and audit liaison capabilities.
• Gather and draft business requirements, functional requirements, and improvement ideas as needed.
• Strong analytical skills with proficiency in Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Vision, Excel, Access, Project) Structured Query Language (SQL).
• Experience in data collection, system analysis, business process analysis, and documentation.
• Support multiple large to medium size initiatives simultaneously.
• Project management, planning, and organizational skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including preparing concise, sr. management ready reports.
• Comfortable with rapid pace and ambiguity.
• Ability to work independently and with cross functional teams.

Salary Description

$95,000 - $105,000, annually