Engineering Director - Wealth Management

Thrivent•Minneapolis, MN

1d•$177,984 - $240,803•Remote

About The Position

This role leads the Wealth Management product group within the Digital Advisor Experience (DAX), responsible for the core wealth platforms, services, and data foundations that power advisor and client experiences across the enterprise. The teams in this product group build and scale investment and portfolio management capabilities, governed product access, broker dealer and trust enablement, and enterprise wealth data—providing the critical building blocks that other product teams rely on to deliver seamless, compliant, and high-quality wealth experiences. Success in this role requires strong platform thinking, cross portfolio collaboration, and a passion for enabling experiences at scale. The Engineering Director leads a team that has responsibility for implementing/modernizing and owning the technology in this product group. They set the technology strategy, create the engineering culture, build high performing teams, manage & develop talent, break down barriers and empower teams to deliver. The Engineering Director has accountability for their teams delivering high quality technology solutions that enable strategic outcomes for Thrivent. They own end-to-end engineering accountability for Wealth Management platforms, including build, run, and optimize. This role is also responsible for collaborating across the enterprise to achieve outcomes and for leading change with a continuous improvement mindset.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience
10+ years of progressively responsible positions in Information Technology including a 5+ years’ management/supervisory experience in specific IT functional area discipline.
Strong leader with a demonstrated track record recruiting and developing teams in current- and next-generation platforms and systems’ needs.
Demonstrated experience in creating, leading, and implementing large scale strategic projects.
Strong communication skills and excellence in negotiation with business partners
Strong relationship building and interpersonal skills.
Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with executive leadership, lines of business stakeholders, and technology staff across the organization.
Background in information delivery including BI/analytic reporting, operational reporting, KPIs, using reporting services.
Experience in development of business strategies, Center of Expense strategies and delivery of enterprise data services.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree
Financial Services industry experience, specifically in wealth management
Experience with wealth management platforms (e.g. portfolio management, trading, rebalancing, model management)
Experience with financial data sources and aggregation capabilities

Responsibilities

Designs Solutions: Sets the vision for the teams and empowers the teams to design solutions. Reviews the overall / high level design and provide feedback to the team. Helps the team to understand the architecture strategy for the given product groups and how it fits in the overall enterprise architecture.
Develops Software: Demonstrates critical thinking towards developing software. Learns and applies new techniques. Influences the team to use modern techniques and share technical insights to the team. Continuously seeks for innovative techniques and solutions to solve the business problems / initiatives.
Collaborates within team: Promotes collaboration and provides opportunities to recognize and celebrate successes.
Collaborates across teams: Regularly engages in product group sprint demos to understand capabilities delivered and outcomes achieved; Provides constructive feedback to foster continuous improvement. Encourages engagement across product groups to share learnings and leverage best practices. Understands the organization’s broader technology ecosystem and how their product groups contribute to the organization’s outcomes. Breaks down product group barriers that impede team delivery and continuous improvement.
Collaborates across the organization: Builds relationships across the organization and across business and technology disciplines. Brings teams together to partner in solving the most strategic and complex problems for the organization and deliver new capabilities collaboratively. Creates a common understanding and alignment on goals and strategies for the enterprise as well as for the technology organization. Provides senior leadership visibility to accomplishments of teams. Supports the organizational rollout of new DevOps capabilities and version updates across the teams.
Sets product/platform technology strategy: Partners with product management to set the platform / product technology vision and outcome. Provides mentorship and motivation to the team to select and execute on the technology strategy that supports the organization growth and sustainability.
Defines Engineering standards/patterns: Promotes engineering practices and continuous improvement such as devops and observability.
DevOps: Supports the development lifecycle processes and operational model guidelines. Ensures that operational health for the area is well articulated and supports continuous improvement. Creates and promotes cross learning opportunities for engineers to onboard new DevOps practices.
Selects & Manages Technology Vendors: Advocates to the team to define criteria’s for selecting the right platform/technology. Owns the overall technology solutions, platforms for the product groups and associated vendor relationships. Provides directions and feedback to select the right technology vendors.
Coaches Engineers: Holds regular 1:1s with direct reports and periodic skip levels and team meetings. Provides opportunities and develops a framework for career growth. Gives constructive feedback, providing guidance and coaching to help engineering managers grow their skills and experience.
Recruits/builds talent: Plans in advance for future people needs for the product groups, collaborates with the other teams on the recruitment process. Drives the hiring process for engineering managers and engineers and participates in the recruitment process for the product area. Engages in the tech community to build the Thrivent technology brand and position as the employer of choice in the market. Recruits, develops, and sustains a high-performing team while promoting a culture of shared accountability, operational excellence, and partnership across the organization. Models Thrivent’s leadership competencies – courage, collaboration, and commitment by demonstrating resiliency, working together to make the best decisions, and holding yourself and others accountable. Supports and/or develops an environment in which Thrivent employees and colleagues are focused on continuous improvement, exceptional employee engagement, and an unwavering commitment to our clients. Shapes and/or supports a culture that represents the Thrivent purpose, promise and values, ensuring that Thrivent’s trust and reputation remain strong with its clients.
Manages a team of direct and indirect staff.