Director of Application Development

Group 1001•Zionsville, IN

10d

About The Position

Group 1001 is a consumer-centric, technology-driven family of insurance companies on a mission to deliver outstanding value and operational performance by combining financial strength and stability with deep insurance expertise and a can-do culture. Group1001’s culture emphasizes the importance of collaboration, communication, core business focus, risk management, and striving for outcomes. This goal extends to how we hire and onboard our most valuable assets – our employees.

Requirements

10+ years of professional full-stack software development experience with progressive responsibility
Demonstrated professional experience in the financial services and/or insurance sector, with a clear commitment to deepening domain knowledge across the markets in which Group 1001 member companies compete — including life and annuity, health, property and casualty, and specialty insurance.
Demonstrated ability to meet or exceed the Lead Applications Developer technical bar across the full stack — see Lead Applications Developer requirements as the technical floor
TypeScript proficiency (expert-level)
Java proficiency (expert-level)
Deep experience with at least one modern front-end framework (Angular, React, or Next.js)
Node.js and Express in production for web hosting and server-side execution
Module bundling (Webpack, Vite, or equivalent)
Spring Boot for enterprise backend services
API design and development (REST, GraphQL)
Advanced Git workflows and authoring/maintaining GitLab CI/CD pipelines
Familiarity with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform preferred)
Production AWS deployment experience and working knowledge of core AWS services
Secure coding mindset — OWASP Top 10 and OWASP ASVS
Demonstrated technical management experience — running a team of 4+ engineers
Confident, fluent use of AI tools to accelerate engineering work
Agile environment experience (Jira, User Stories)
Demonstrated grounding in software engineering concepts and theory — acquired through formal education, professional training, or equivalent industry experience

Nice To Haves

Prior experience integrating acquired-company application stacks during M&A activity
Insurance, life/annuity, or financial services domain experience
AWS certification
Platform engineering or developer-experience leadership exposure

Responsibilities

Direct people-management of Lead, Senior, and entry-level Applications Developers (FTE and contractor mix)
Tactical accountability for sprint-level delivery, code reviews, and technical decisions across the application development track
Supports application development needs across all Group 1001 member companies: Delaware Life, Wellspring Health, Gainbridge, Clear Spring P&C, RVI Group, and Group 1001 Corporate
Expected to maintain hands-on coding contribution on critical-path work, personally conduct code reviews, and prototype technical solutions to de-risk delivery
Must meet or exceed the Lead Applications Developer technical bar across the full stack
Operates in an Agile environment using Jira and User Stories, with AI-assisted development expected throughout the team
Contribute production code on critical-path work; personally conduct code reviews; build prototypes and proofs-of-concept to de-risk new initiatives.
Serve as the accountable Product Owner for the applications and web properties in the team's portfolio, including ongoing responsibility for security posture, accessibility compliance (WCAG AA minimum), and regulatory compliance applicable to the supported Group 1001 member company (e.g., insurance regulatory, privacy, and data-protection requirements).
Own the architectural health of every application in the portfolio — including business continuity and disaster recovery posture, data backup and retention policy adherence, operating-system and runtime version currency, third-party library currency, and timely application of security patches.
Ensure every team member has access to the correct application development and support tooling at the appropriate access level — including IDEs, design tools, source control, CI/CD systems, cloud consoles, monitoring/observability platforms, ticketing systems, and any production-support tooling required for their role. Partner with IT, Security, and Identity teams to provision, review, and revoke access on an ongoing basis.
Own the team's quarterly and sprint-level delivery plans; align capacity against committed scope.
Either lead or actively participate in Agile sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives; partner with product owners on story sizing and readiness.
Personally vet user stories for technical fitness, acceptance criteria clarity, and dependency identification before they enter a sprint.
Match developers to projects and enhancements based on skill, growth opportunity, and capacity.
Schedule management, 1:1s, goal-setting, performance reviews, compensation recommendations, and corrective action.
Build individual development plans; provide technical mentoring; identify and resolve skill gaps through training, pairing, and assignment.
Drive measurable improvements in cycle time, change-fail rate, MTTR, and code quality; own the team's CI/CD pipeline health on GitLab.
In partnership with the AVP, lead the hands-on technical assessment, re-platforming, and integration of application stacks acquired through M&A across member companies.
Set and enforce team coding standards, secure coding practices (OWASP Top 10 / ASVS), API design conventions, and architectural patterns.
Participate in on-call rotation; lead and/or review investigations on production issues.