Director, Software Engineering Platform and Quality Engineering

If youre passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwides Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide, on your side goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and were looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

Platform & QE Director Commercial Line Solutions

We are seeking a seasoned technology leader to serve as Platform Director for Commercial Line Solutions, supporting Small, Middle, and Farm markets. This strategic role is responsible for the technical stewardship, evolution, and stability of the platform, guiding a team of 2025 associates and matrixed resources. The Platform Director will report to the AVP, Application Owner for Commercial Lines and collaborate closely with business and technology leaders across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Provide deep technical expertise and hands-on guidance to engineering teams supporting mission-critical applications, including Guidewire suite, GW PolicyCenter, IBM App Connect, APIGEE, IBM ODM, Informatica, and related technologies.

• Strategic Direction: Drive the evolution and modernization of the Commercial Lines platform, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, and aligned with business objectives for Small, Middle, and Farm market segments.

• Operational Excellence: Oversee platform health, stability, and performance, engaging with the dedicated Run/Incident team as needed to resolve escalations and ensure 24x7x365 availability of critical applications and APIs.

• Incident Engagement: Serve as the primary technical escalation point for Level 3 and Level 4 incidents, collaborating with the Run/Incident team to resolve CritSit and problem scenarios, support continuity management (DR), and facilitate weekend release deployments.

• Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and empower a team of technical professionals, fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.

• Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with business leaders, product owners, and technology stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into high-impact platform solutions.

• Financial Stewardship: Manage departmental budgets and resources to deliver efficient, high-quality technology services.

• Technology Modernization: Champion remediation of technical debt, infrastructure upgrades, vulnerability management, and automation initiatives.

Quality Engineering (QE) Leadership

• QE Strategy & Execution: Lead the platforms QE function, responsible for building, maintaining, and updating regression, performance, and automation scripts to ensure the ongoing quality and reliability of the platform.

• QE Team Management: Oversee a mix of Nationwide leads and partner resources (onshore and offshore), ensuring effective collaboration and delivery of QE objectives.

• Quality Ownership: Maintain high standards for platform quality through robust automation, performance testing, and regression coverage. Proactively identify and address quality risks and gaps.

• Functional Testing Boundary: Note that functional testing remains out of scope for this leaders team and will be managed by the respective business lines.

• Continuous Improvement: Drive adoption of best practices in test automation, CI/CD integration, and performance engineering to support rapid, reliable platform releases.

Partner Management

• Resource Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with multiple Nationwide partners, managing both onshore and offshore resources to ensure optimal team composition and delivery capability.

• Vendor Collaboration: Oversee partner performance, set clear expectations, and ensure alignment with platform goals and quality standards.

• Talent Acquisition: Interview and select full-time employees (FTEs) and contractors, building a high-performing, diverse team aligned with organizational goals.

• Workforce Planning: Strategically allocate work across internal and partner teams, balancing cost, quality, and speed to meet business needs.

Platform Scope & Technologies

• Applications Supported: Guidewire suite, GW PolicyCenter, IBM App Connect, APIGEE, IBM ODM, Informatica

• Technologies Leveraged: SQL, Kafka, Linux, SQL Server, DB2, Java/Spring Boot, Microservices, Angular/AngularJS, SFTP, IBM MQ, REST APIs, Github, Kubernetes, Harness, Mule, Splunk, NewRelic, JMeter, Gosu, and more.

Unique Requirements

• 24x7x365 Availability: Ensure platform and API availability through proactive monitoring, escalation support, and incident management.

• Release & Deployment Support: Provide technical leadership for application and infrastructure releases, including weekend and off-hours support as required.

• Continuous Improvement: Lead code reviews, vulnerability remediation, and semi-discretionary enhancement work.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Demonstrated success in leading technical and QE teams, delivering large-scale, complex platform solutions.

• Deep expertise in software engineering, application architecture, and modern technology stacks.

• Experience in the Property & Casualty insurance industry, preferably with Commercial Lines focus.

• Proven ability to drive strategic initiatives, manage escalations, and foster cross-functional collaboration.

• Familiarity with Guidewire Insurance Suite and related technologies is strongly preferred.

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Job Description Summary

If youre enthusiastic about delivering secure technology solutions to support a company providing extraordinary care to its customers, then Nationwide Technology is the place for you. Nationwide's industry-leading technology workforce embraces an agile work environment and a collaborative culture to deliver outstanding solutions and results. If that sounds like something you aspire to, we want to hear from you!

As a Software Engineering Product Manager, youll be accountable for a suite of in-house or third-party applications. You'll lead teams of technology professionals to enable business outcomes and provide reliable customer-centric solutions and experiences.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Responsible for applying secure software and systems engineering practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure our data and technology solutions are protected from threats and vulnerabilities.

• Ensures a viable total cost of ownership and ongoing health and wellness of applications.

• Owns the strategic vision, develops and implements application suite roadmaps that encompass evolving the application capabilities and operating platforms through the evaluation of business needs, competitive landscape, technology currency and information security considerations.

• Owns risk mitigation controls and provides support for internal and external audits.

• Supports the engineering build of the application suite and non technical efforts for the products.

• Represents voice of the customer, acts in a forward-facing role to business partners as an active member of a portfolio management team in the advocation of business case development, planning, financial management and evaluation of portfolio.

• Leads all aspects of associate management, including performance, salary administration, training and development, hiring, day-to-day management and disciplinary actions.

• Responsible for delivery availability and resiliency following established operating mechanisms and best practices.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Technology AVP or above. Leads a team of five or more technology professionals.

Typical Skills and Experiences:

Education: Undergraduate studies in management information systems, engineering, math, computer science or comparable experience and education preferred.

License/Certification/Designation: Technology certifications or designation are not required, but encouraged, e.g., Amazon Web Services, Azure, Scripting and Development Languages, Delivery Methods, Security).

Experience: Eight years of experience in application suite management with five years or more leading numerous teams across multiple technologies. Proven experience in empowering and building an engaged team.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: Detailed understanding and expert knowledge of the systems development life cycle and modern methodologies, practices, tools, and techniques. Extensive knowledge of concepts and techniques in project delivery, budgeting, forecasting and financial analysis. Ability to develop and implement roadmap strategies. Proven decision-making and problem-solving skills. Coaching and career development of team. Ability to develop and maintain positive relationships. Insurance/financial services industry knowledge is a plus.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring managers leader and Human Resources Business Partner.

Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions:

Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment. Associates may have on-call responsibility after normal working hours and/or on weekends.

ADA: The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job. Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here .

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

NOTE TO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES:

We value the partnerships we have built with our preferred vendors. Nationwide does not accept unsolicited resumes from employment agencies. All resumes submitted by employment agencies directly to any Nationwide employee or hiring manager in any form without a signed Nationwide Client Services Agreement on file and search engagement for that position will be deemed unsolicited in nature. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is subsequently hired as a result of the referral or through other means.

Nationwide pays on a geographic-specific salary structure and placement within the actual starting salary range for this position will be determined by a number of factors including the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; the scope, complexity and location of the role as well as the cost of labor in the market; and other conditions of employment. If a Sales job, Sales Incentives, based on performance goals are possible in addition to this range. Note on Compensation for Part-Time Roles: Please be aware that the salary ranges listed below reflect full-time compensation. Actual compensation may be prorated based on the number of hours worked relative to a full-time schedule.The national salary range for Director, Software Engineering Product Manager : $149,000.00-$262,000.00The expected starting salary range for Director, Software Engineering Product Manager : $149,000.00 - $223,000.00