Mgr, Engineering

Thrivent•Minneapolis, MN

2d•Remote

About The Position

As a Manager of Engineering, you will provide technical leadership for Thrivent's Engineering Productivity ecosystem, including our Internal Developer Platform (IDP), self-service engineering capabilities, and developer experience initiatives. You will own the vision, strategy, and evolution of platform capabilities that enable engineers to build, deploy, and operate software more effectively. In this role, you will balance platform innovation with operational excellence, ensuring engineering productivity capabilities remain reliable, secure, scalable, and easy to maintain while continuously reducing developer friction. You will partner closely with engineers, architects, product leaders, and platform teams to identify developer pain points, translate them into platform capabilities, and drive adoption through intuitive self-service experiences. As a hands-on technical leader, you will champion modern engineering practices, evaluate emerging technologies, including Generative AI, and create pathways for teams to experiment, learn, and scale new capabilities across the enterprise with the goal to improve developer productivity, platform adoption, software delivery effectiveness, and engineering satisfaction.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience
8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure, or related technology disciplines, with a track record of improving engineering effectiveness and operational outcomes.
3+ years of leadership experience driving technical strategy, execution, and continuous improvement across engineering teams.
3+ years of people leadership experience leading technical teams responsible for shared engineering capabilities, with demonstrated success developing talent and fostering technical excellence.
Experience building, operating , and evolving an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) at enterprise scale.
Demonstrated success implementing golden paths, paved roads, self-service engineering capabilities, and developer productivity tooling.
Experience defining platform success metrics, including adoption, developer satisfaction, deployment efficiency, lead time reduction, and friction reduction.
Experience improving developer experience through platform engineering and adoption-focused product thinking.
Demonstrated leadership and experience managing multidiscipline, high-performance work teams.
Strong competency in project management and execution of multiple or large projects.
Strong understanding of platform engineering, DevOps, cloud-native architectures, CI/CD, developer portals, infrastructure automation, and software delivery platforms.
Experience working with customers to develop solutions to complex business problems.
Proven ability to communicate effectively with internal/external stakeholders to support business initiatives.
Proven ability to function in an environment which requires flexibility with the ability to make decisions based on limited information .
Ability to formulate, implement and evaluate plans, programs and procedures applicable to customer relationship and demand management.

Nice To Haves

MBA
Experience evaluating and implementing AI-assisted software development capabilities and developer productivity solutions.
Financial Services industry experience
Experience in IT planning and business relationship management
Experience working in a matrix management organization
Experience with product development and management

Responsibilities

Own the health, reliability, security, scalability, and long-term sustainability of Thrivent's Engineering Productivity platforms and Internal Developer Platform (IDP).
Balance delivery of new capabilities with platform maintenance, technical debt reduction, modernization efforts, and lifecycle management of legacy solutions.
Drive platform stability through proactive monitoring, operational excellence, reliability engineering practices, and continuous improvement.
Establish and maintain engineering standards, architectural guardrails, and platform governance practices that support enterprise-scale adoption.
Lead the strategy and evolution of self-service engineering capabilities that improve the software development lifecycle and reduce developer friction.
Translate developer pain points into platform capabilities, golden paths, paved-road experiences, and reusable engineering solutions.
Create intuitive, scalable solutions that enable engineers to provision infrastructure, deploy applications, manage services, and access development resources independently.
Measure success through platform adoption, developer satisfaction, productivity gains, and reduced operational burden rather than feature output alone.
Define and drive the roadmap for the Internal Developer Platform, ensuring it delivers measurable value across engineering teams.
Build and evolve platform capabilities that simplify software delivery, improve consistency, and accelerate engineering velocity.
Partner with engineering teams to understand workflow challenges and continuously refine platform experiences based on feedback and usage patterns.
Drive adoption initiatives through enablement, education, documentation, and hands-on engagement with engineering teams.
Continuously evaluate emerging technologies, tools, and engineering practices—including Generative AI and AI-assisted development capabilities—to improve software quality and developer productivity.
Foster a culture of experimentation, continuous learning, and responsible innovation.
Lead proof-of-concepts, pilot programs, and experiential learning initiatives that validate new platform capabilities before scaling.
Identify opportunities to automate repetitive work, streamline delivery processes, and improve the overall developer experience.
Provide architectural guidance and technical leadership across engineering teams.
Mentor and coach engineers on platform engineering, developer experience, cloud-native development, automation, and operational excellence.
Promote knowledge sharing and create mechanisms for teams to learn from successes and failures.
Influence engineering strategy and platform investments through data-driven recommendations and industry best practices.