Lead Platform Engineer

Guardian Life Insurance • Holmdel Township, NJ

8d • Hybrid

About The Position

Lead Platform Engineer We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to design, build, and scale critical backend systems and platforms that power sophisticated, long‑running workflows and data‑intensive applications. This role combines hands‑on technical leadership with strong cross‑team collaboration, focusing on system reliability, data integrity, and scalable architecture. You will develop systems that manage processes. You will be responsible for core data models and transformations in PostgreSQL/MySQL. You will collaborate with product, data, and infrastructure teams to deliver valuable solutions. You Are: A technical leader working across product, data, platform, and infrastructure teams. An advocate for pragmatic engineering practices that balance speed and quality. You Will: Design and own long‑running, stateful workflow architectures (sagas, orchestrated workflows, async processing). Build scalable backend services and APIs with a focus on reliability, correctness, and maintainability. Make architectural decisions around service boundaries, data ownership, and consistency models. Review designs and code to ensure high engineering standards across teams. Implement and operate workflow orchestration systems for multi-step, long-running processes. Handle retries, idempotency, compensation, failure recovery, and observability for workflows. Integrate background processing, event‑driven systems, and message queues where appropriate. Ensure workflows scale reliably under load and evolving business requirements. Own SQL schema design, query performance, indexing strategies, and migrations. Develop and carry out database transformations and data pipelines to support evolving product needs. Ensure data integrity, transactional correctness, and backward-compatible schema evolution. Partner with data teams to align operational data models with analytical and reporting needs. Translate business requirements into clear technical designs and execution plans. Mentor engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and technical coaching. Drive alignment on shared patterns, standards, and best practices across teams. Define and uphold reliability standards (SLAs/SLOs) for critical services and workflows. Implement logging, metrics, and tracing to provide deep visibility into system behavior. Lead incident analysis, root cause reviews, and preventative improvements. Continuously improve system resilience, scalability, and operational simplicity. Build shared libraries, frameworks, and tooling to accelerate team development. Improve local development, testing, and deployment workflows. Document system architecture, workflows, and operational runbooks.

Requirements

• 7–10 years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated technical leadership
• Strong experience designing long‑running, distributed workflow systems
• Deep knowledge of PostgreSQL/MySQL, including schema design, performance tuning, and migrations
• Proven ability to design and implement database transformations and data‑heavy systems
• Strong backend development skills (e.g., Dotnet (C#), Typescript, Python, Java, Kotlin, Go, or similar)
• Experience building and operating production services and APIs
• Ability to work effectively across multiple teams and disciplines
• Strong system design, debugging, and problem‑solving skills
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Design and own long‑running, stateful workflow architectures (sagas, orchestrated workflows, async processing)
• Build scalable backend services and APIs with a focus on reliability, correctness, and maintainability
• Make architectural decisions around service boundaries, data ownership, and consistency models
• Review designs and code to ensure high engineering standards across teams
• Implement and operate workflow orchestration systems for multi-step, long-running processes
• Handle retries, idempotency, compensation, failure recovery, and observability for workflows
• Integrate background processing, event‑driven systems, and message queues where appropriate
• Ensure workflows scale reliably under load and evolving business requirements
• Own SQL schema design, query performance, indexing strategies, and migrations
• Develop and carry out database transformations and data pipelines to support evolving product needs
• Ensure data integrity, transactional correctness, and backward-compatible schema evolution
• Partner with data teams to align operational data models with analytical and reporting needs
• Translate business requirements into clear technical designs and execution plans
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and technical coaching
• Drive alignment on shared patterns, standards, and best practices across teams
• Define and uphold reliability standards (SLAs/SLOs) for critical services and workflows
• Implement logging, metrics, and tracing to provide deep visibility into system behavior
• Lead incident analysis, root cause reviews, and preventative improvements
• Continuously improve system resilience, scalability, and operational simplicity
• Build shared libraries, frameworks, and tooling to accelerate team development
• Improve local development, testing, and deployment workflows
• Document system architecture, workflows, and operational runbooks

Benefits

• At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.
• Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.
• Inspire Well-Being As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues.
• Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits.
• Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees.

What This Job Offers

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