Application Development Executive - Pricing Engineering (Guidewire + Policy O&M) - San Antonio ONLY

USAA•San Antonio, TX

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

USAA is seeking an Executive Director, Application Development of Pricing Engineering (Guidewire and Policy O&M) to oversee Guidewire PolicyCenter, Guidewire ContactManager, Earnix/Pricing, and Policy Modernization Operations and Maintenance teams. This role requires a flexible work environment with 4 days per week in the San Antonio office. The successful candidate will serve as the primary engineering counterpart to the business AVP of Pricing and Documents, driving decisions on pricing and underwriting priorities. They will be responsible for delivering capabilities to support Policy Modernization state rollout roadmaps for Auto, Property, and Umbrella product lines, ensuring delivery predictability, quality, and operational readiness. The role also involves sustaining and extending the success of Guidewire and Policy Modernization Operations and Maintenance, leading production support, upgrades, release and deployment management, incident management, defect remediation, vulnerability remediation, and proactive monitoring. Additionally, the Executive Director will lead and coordinate the pricing modernization agenda, driving improvements in data quality, recency, validation automation, cycle time, and pricing execution reliability, while championing improvements to Earnix and managing the retirement of high-risk UDA-dependent workflows.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer information systems, or related field of study; OR 4 years of related experience (in addition to the minimum years of experience required) may be substituted in lieu of degree.
10 years of experience of general IT management competencies.
4 years of people leadership experience in building, managing, and/or developing high-performing teams required.
Strong technical background of web-based application architecture, system and database architecture, security application integration, and object-oriented languages in a large enterprise environment.
Extensive experience in all stages of the software development life cycle: requirements gathering, design, development, testing, and implementation.
Demonstrated ability to communicate technical information to a non-technical audience.
Experience collaborating with key resources and stakeholders, influencing decisions, and managing work to achieve strategic goals required.
Demonstrated experience in vendor contract management and management of distributed development teams and resources.
Demonstrated financial acumen involving budgets, forecasting, and executing on the budgets for applicable technology support function.
Understanding of relevant industry frameworks, i.e., COBIT, ITIL, SAFe, etc.
Understanding of Legislative and Regulatory Compliance Requirements.
Experience overseeing the technology life cycle from requirements analysis, feasibility estimates, design, code, documentation, testing, implementation, and support.
Technical knowledge and understanding of technical domains that reside within Infrastructure Services, Security, Data or Application Development.
Experience conducting cost benefit analyses and leveraging results to drive technology support solutions.
Demonstrated thought leadership in embedding intuitive story telling of technology support functions including concise presentation of complex technical details.
Experience and ability to drive a culture of quality and personal accountability through technology support teams.

Nice To Haves

Other Vendor Platforms experience will be considered.
Guidewire PolicyCenter
Guidewire ContactManager
Earnix/Pricing
Policy Modernization Operations and Maintenance

Responsibilities

Oversee all Guidewire PolicyCenter, Guidewire ContactManager, Earnix/Pricing, and Policy Modernization Operations and Maintenance teams within the Policy Modernization organization.
Build successor-ready leaders who can step into broader ED scope and key direct-report roles within 3-5 years.
Serve as the primary engineering counterpart to the business AVP of Pricing and Documents demonstrating executive presence to challenge assumptions, align trade-offs, and drive timely cross-functional decisions on pricing and underwriting priorities.
Deliver capabilities required to support Policy Modernization state rollout roadmaps for the Auto, Property, and Umbrella product lines, with clear ownership of delivery predictability, quality, and operational readiness.
Sustain and extend the success of Guidewire and Policy Modernization Operations and Maintenance by leading production support including upgrades, release and deployment management, incident management, defect remediation, vulnerability remediation, and proactive monitoring so IT remains first-to-know for unhealthy systems, services, and APIs.
Lead and coordinate the pricing modernization agenda, delivering measurable improvements in data quality, data recency, validation automation, cycle time, and pricing execution reliability.
Champion and drive improvements to Earnix through adoption of native capabilities, dashboards, and workflows, and manage retirement of high-risk UDA-dependent workflows to re-design the pricing data and tooling ecosystem in alignment with the Pricing Factory vision.
Performs workload management and prioritization duties in support of operations for the functional area assigned.
Applies subject-matter-expert functional knowledge to lead subordinate workers in producing work deliverables in support of departmental initiatives.
Develops functional policies, procedures, and guidelines.
Identifies opportunities and facilitates major improvements to processes and systems.
Ensures that the assigned application group develops processes and tools that contribute to the company business objectives.
Ensures that all application processes developed internally or by external service providers are conducted in line with corporate social responsibility, environmental and technical policies and applicable standards and legislation.
Oversees the assessment of the technical and business fitness of the application portfolio and their associated costs and risks.
In partnership with CTO, Infrastructure and IT Security, ensures that the organization's applications are effectively secured and that risks are mitigated and comply with legal and corporate privacy and confidentiality rules.
Establishes management routines to ensure appropriate oversight of the organization’s software development and maintenance activities.
Serves as financial steward for the organization and manages relationships with major vendors and service providers to ensure they cost-effectively meet the needs of the organization.
Evaluates and selects third party vendors to provide value added services.
Facilitates the contracting process through the Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) enterprise process.
Responsible for contract company/service performance providing timely feedback to ensure the best value for USAA.
Collaborates with CTO to ensure that solutions are consistent with technology standards.
Works across IT and business partners to reduce technical debt.
Collaborates with other leaders and/or stakeholders and develop an application development strategy that aligns with business strategy, adds value and is within budget constraints.
Responsible for team’s adherence to SDLC and applicable controls.
Works to ensure teams have appropriate, development plans consistent with domain of expertise.
Mentors across the technical community.
Provides oversight to the engagement with the business DPO and ensures deliverables adhere to Agile practices/methodologies.
Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.