Director of Engineering, Group Benefits Claims Technology

Manulife • Waterloo, ON

6d • $113,260 - $210,340 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Engineering leads end‑to‑end engineering delivery for Group Benefits Claims Technology, with accountability for Software Engineering, Performance Engineering, and Quality Engineering across multiple teams. This role bridges technology and business outcomes, aligning engineering delivery to advisor and customer experience, sales enablement, digital roadmaps, and operational efficiency. It is a strategic and change-enablement leadership role that sets standards, removes constraints, and ensures the Claims ecosystem has high availability, performance, and integrity—grounded in our scale of 85M+ annual claims transactions. Also, champions engineering powered by advanced technology to accelerate time‑to‑productivity, scale excellence, and automate compliance with information systems policies and standards.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent experience.
• 10–15+ years of progressive engineering leadership with direct accountability for Performance and Quality practices.
• Proven success leading SAFe Agile Release Trains; mastery of CI/CD, automated testing, secure coding, and observability.
• Hands‑on familiarity with JMeter, Load Runner, Bruno, New Relic, Azure Data Explorer (performance) and Selenium, Playwright, Robot Framework, JIRA Xray (quality).
• Experience influencing partnership within Product, Operations, Distribution, Architecture, and Security.
• Track record of AI‑enabled engineering (NLP‑based test generation, synthetic data creation, anomaly detection, policy/compliance automation).
• Deep domain understanding; translates business needs into actionable roadmaps across PI planning and yearly book‑of‑work.
• AKS, microservices, APIs, data models; communicates architecture standards and future‑ready options.
• Ensures automated pipelines, frequent check‑ins, and alignment to delivery standards.
• Addresses system quality attributes proactively; limits defect propagation; embeds quality into design and delivery.
• Clear vision/roadmap; moves decisively on complex problems; owns outcomes; leads incident resolution/handling on-call critical issues.
• Prioritizes outcomes; builds trust; assigns stretch work; conducts regular development discussions.
• Aligns tech initiatives to business goals; resolves conflict; uses data‑informed decisions; builds strong networks.
• Connects vision to action; manages problems with outstanding characteristics; balances long-term planning and day-to-day work.
• Designs processes/capabilities; drives continuous improvement across squads.
• Acts constructively amid uncertainty; manages risk while moving forward; adapts quickly to change.
• Upholds visible/thinking diversity; leverages panels, feedback loops, and psychologically safe culture.

Responsibilities

• Set and enforce delivery health guardrails with focus on incident management, MTTR, release cycle time, DR/BC test success; ensure automated pipelines and streamlined CI/CD processes.
• Mature and sustain performance practices; define non‑functional requirements; drive E2E performance testing; use AI analytics to mirror production usage in test design.
• Own quality strategy and automation including data synthetics and JIRA Xray test management; embed quality gates and coverage targets across functional, integration, and E2E tests.
• Foster strong relationships across Product, Operations, Architecture, and ART leadership to deliver business outcomes and align on roadmaps and health dashboards.
• Attract and grow talent; lead 1:1s and mentoring; succession planning; skill assessments; build communities of practice to improve efficiency and standards.
• Establish AI guardrails and usage patterns (requirements parsing, test generation, code review, compliance checks, observability insights); measure productivity and quality gains.
• Cross‑portfolio sequencing and decision frameworks across CST, Disability, and Distribution portfolios; drive alignment and unblock constraints in the value stream.
• Partner with Architecture, Security, and Platform teams to uphold standards and engineering integrity; lead demo days and technical forums to scale standard processes.

Benefits

• health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans.
• various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources.
• generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director