Director, IT

Markel•Richmond, VA

4d•$152,600 - $318,000

About The Position

Markel is hiring an IT Director to lead multiple full-stack development teams responsible for its Wholesale and Specialty policy administration platform. This large, actively developed application is built on the Microsoft technology stack and supports underwriters in quoting, issuing, and servicing commercial insurance policies. The Director leads the design, development, and delivery of new platform capabilities and participates in planning and managing activities within the assigned business area. Prior insurance systems experience is preferred but not required; a strong engineering leader willing to learn the business domain can succeed in the role. The position manages IT employees across varied experience levels and may oversee offshore resources. It represents engineering to business stakeholders, customers, and internal delivery teams, and partners with product owners and business partners to turn business needs into software. The role leads full-stack application development and owns team engineering practices, including CI/CD, testing, code quality, environments, releases, and production support. It also ensures integrations with surrounding systems such as billing, claims, document generation, and enterprise reporting. The Director contributes to strategic, operational, and divisional goals; manages staffing and team performance; coaches and develops employees; and monitors delivery, team health, priorities, milestones, and metrics. The role participates in production support escalation and may occasionally require late evening or weekend work. A bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent work experience is required. US work authorization is required; Markel does not provide visa sponsorship for this position.

Requirements

8 to 10 years of software development, infrastructure, or project delivery experience, including full-stack application development.
Hands-on experience with the Microsoft technology stack, including C#/.NET (.NET Core / .NET 6+), ASP.NET, REST APIs, and SQL Server.
Experience delivering and operating applications in Microsoft Azure, such as App Services, Functions, Azure SQL, storage, and messaging.
Experience with modern CI/CD practices and tooling, preferably Azure DevOps and/or GitHub, including automated build, test, and release pipelines.
Experience with modern front-end development, such as Angular, React, or Blazor.
Experience with agile software development methodologies.
Experience coaching and mentoring team members.
Ability to balance immediate operational needs with progress toward long-term engineering goals.
Practical experience applying AI-assisted development tooling and AI capabilities in an application engineering context.
Strong knowledge of technologies and methodologies related to the assigned business area.
Skill in organizing resources and establishing priorities.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Ability to gather technical information and communicate it clearly and concisely.
Commitment to continuous improvement.
Ability to lead, coach, and develop staff across multiple teams.
Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills, including the ability to interact with all levels of internal and external business partners.
Ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects, with attention to detail and deadlines.
Confidence working with and persuading employees at all levels.
Ability to lead in a busy, fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.
Willingness to learn a complex business domain and translate it into technical direction for the team.
Working knowledge of application architecture patterns, secure coding practices, and technical debt management in a long-lived business-critical system.
Working knowledge of AI tools and techniques and ability to apply them to software engineering and delivery problems.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, another related field, or equivalent work experience, including military experience.
US work authorization is required; visa sponsorship is not provided now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing multiple teams.
Experience leading teams that support a large, long-lived business-critical application.
Insurance or financial services experience.

Responsibilities

Contribute to strategic, operational, and divisional goals as a member of the management team.
Track team delivery, provide project updates, and notify management of deviations that may affect delivery.
Plan and conduct employee performance appraisals and administer disciplinary action.
Initiate discussions about raises, bonuses, and promotions for team members.
Recruit, develop, retain, and organize managed staff in accordance with corporate budget and policies, including offshore resources.
Define team operating standards and ensure essential procedures are followed.
Train, coach, and mentor employees.
Identify and measure team health indicators.
Keep teams focused on priorities, milestones, and deliverables.
Track and report key metrics and status updates to senior management.
Represent the engineering team to business stakeholders, customers, and other internal delivery teams.
Lead the design, build, and delivery of application components across the full stack on the Microsoft technology stack.
Own engineering practices, including CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality standards, environment and release management, and production support.
Partner with product owners and business partners to translate business needs into working software and build the team's understanding of the insurance processes supported by the platform.
Ensure reliable integration between the platform and surrounding systems, including billing, claims, document generation, and enterprise reporting.
Manage one or more teams, balancing workload and priorities across them.
Participate in production support escalation, including occasional late evenings and weekends as needed.