The latest episode in the ‘Meet the expert’ series: Pauline Keys, Director of Software Engineering
Software engineering is often invisible to customers, but it plays a critical role in turning a good idea into a product that solves a real problem.
As Director of Software Engineering at TRG Screen, Pauline Keys leads the teams responsible for developing, delivering and supporting the company's products. Since joining in late 2025, she has been focused on advancing the team’s engineering capabilities, further embedding AI into product development, and accelerating the delivery of new solutions to clients. We caught up with Pauline to discuss the relationship between product and engineering, the opportunities and challenges AI presents, and what it takes to build software that customers can depend on.
I lead software engineering at TRG Screen, overseeing the teams responsible for developing, releasing, and supporting our products.
My role spans the full product lifecycle. That means helping build new capabilities, ensuring our systems remain operational and reliable once they're in production, and putting the engineering foundations in place that allow us to deliver high-quality software consistently.
I also lead our Belfast office, so there's a significant people and culture element to the role as well.
I started as a software engineer before moving into leadership roles across various technology businesses over the years.
A common theme throughout my career has been helping organizations improve how they build and deliver software, evolve legacy technology, and create stronger foundations for future growth.
What attracted me to TRG Screen was the opportunity to take on that challenge again in a new industry.
I saw a business with a strong product suite, ambitious plans, and a genuine appetite for innovation. There was also a clear appetite to explore how AI could accelerate software development and innovation and help drive better customer outcomes.
The simplest way to describe it is that the product team defines the what and the why, while engineering delivers the how.
Product works closely with customers to understand challenges, priorities and outcomes. Engineering then takes those requirements and turns them into reality.
There's a huge amount of collaboration between the two functions, but that distinction is important.
Like many technology leaders, a significant part of my focus is on AI and understanding how it can be used effectively within software development.
Everybody is talking about AI because of its potential to accelerate development. The challenge is making sure you're building in a safe, secure and reliable way.
When you're developing software for financial institutions, there are important questions you need to answer. How do you ensure customer data remains protected? How do you know a solution has been properly tested? How do you make sure it can scale? How do you recover quickly if something goes wrong?
AI can absolutely help teams move faster, but successful adoption requires strong engineering discipline alongside the technology itself.
When you look across financial services, many parts of an organization have embraced modern software delivery practices and are able to innovate rapidly. Market data operations seem to be more cautious.
One of my goals is to help create the engineering foundations that allow us to deliver new capabilities faster. We’ve been moving very quickly over the past couple of years. But the challenge isn't deciding whether to move faster; it's creating the conditions that allow you to do so safely while giving customers complete confidence in what we're delivering.
That's ultimately about building trust in the development process.
Our recently launched Contracts AI and Invoice AI capabilities are great examples.
I'm incredibly proud of how those products were built because they represent the benchmark for how we want to develop software going forward.
The teams approached those products differently from the outset, with a focus on leaner engineering processes, greater automation, and a development model designed to support faster, more continuous delivery.
For me, they demonstrate what's possible when you have the right engineering foundations in place.
What's equally exciting is the value customers receive. Instead of manually extracting information from contracts or invoices, they can automate those processes and focus on higher-value work.
Ultimately, that's what good software engineering should achieve.
Tenacity is probably the biggest one.
When it comes to transformation, the technology is rarely the hardest part. More often, the challenge is helping people and organizations embrace new ways of working.
You have to bring people with you, build trust and stick with it, even when things don't go exactly as planned. Software development can be unpredictable, particularly when you're dealing with legacy systems and change.
Having the resilience to keep moving forward and the openness to learn and adapt, have probably been the biggest contributors to my success.
There is something deeply satisfying about seeing legacy technology retired and replaced with a new product that customers are genuinely excited to use.
As engineers, we're often working behind the scenes, so it's incredibly rewarding to see something your team has built solve real problems and make people's lives easier.
But if I'm honest, the most rewarding part of my role is helping people grow.
The best outcome isn't when I solve the problem. It's when the team solves it themselves.
You invest time building capability and confidence, and eventually you reach a point where the team is operating successfully without needing constant direction. Seeing that happen is incredibly rewarding.
For me, success is creating an engineering organization that can continuously innovate, respond quickly to customer needs and deliver new capabilities with confidence. If we can continue strengthening our engineering capabilities while continuing to embrace the opportunities AI creates, we'll be in a strong position to help our customers adapt and innovate as their own businesses evolve.
Most people are surprised to learn that I'm naturally quite introverted. Leadership requires a lot of communication, collaboration and energy, so I tend to gravitate towards activities that help me slow down and recharge.
Weightlifting is a big part of that, and I've also got a fairly serious LEGO habit. I originally planned to study mechanical engineering before switching to software engineering, so I've always enjoyed understanding how things work and building things from scratch.
My collection now includes everything from the Titanic to the Ferrari, Bugatti and Millennium Falcon – which I am currently building. The problem now is finding somewhere to put them all.
Stay tuned for more expert insights in our Meet the Expert series, where we showcase the incredible talent behind TRG Screen and their contributions to the financial services industry.