Citizens Bank has hired 750 engineers over the past four years to boost its in-house technology innovation capabilities. 

The hiring has helped “us transform from being an organization [that] was heavily outsourced, to having a strong base of in-house engineers who have a problem-solving mindset,” Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer and head of enterprise technology, told Bank Automation News. 

The bank has hired engineers within the following disciplines: 

• Software; 

• Architecture; 

• Network; 

• Infrastructure; and 

• Cloud. 

While Citizens invests in its engineering team, it is reducing headcount elsewhere, according to its second-quarter earnings supplement in July. In fact, its full-time equivalent headcount fell 5% year over year to 17,510 in Q2.  

In-house innovations 

As the $219 billion bank adds to its engineering team, it has addressed the following digital efforts in-house: 

• Cloud migration. With cloud engineers on the team, the bank expects 70% of its applications to be on the cloud by the end of the year.  

• Enterprise resource planning tool. The bank plans to add an enterprise resource planning tool to its Cash Flow Forecasting platform this year, Mark Valentino, head of business banking, previously told BAN. 

• Virtual assistant. Citizens was granted a patent for its Digital Butler assistant in February due to its personalization capabilities. The virtual assistant is updated quarterly, Jo Wyper, executive vice president and head of operations at Citizens Commercial Bank, previously told BAN. 

With the additional engineers, the bank is “capable of building unique customized solutions for our customers and colleagues,” Ruttledge said. 

To hear more from Citizens’ Michael Ruttledge, register for the upcoming complimentary webinar presented by Bank Automation News: “The future of open banking: Payments meet data,” on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. ET. Register for the webinar here.