Senior Associate, Senior Creative Technologist

New York Life•New York, NY

2d•$100,000 - $143,000•Hybrid

About The Position

It is an exciting time to join New York Life Insurance Company as we continue to innovate our technology and build the next generation digital experience for our customers. We are a Fortune 100 company and the largest mutual life insurance company in the US. We invest in our people and provide support to grow our employees’ career. We're looking for a Creative Technologist to help define and execute a new design-to-development operating model for the NYL360 experience, one where design works directly in NYL360's front-end codebase using AI-assisted tools like Claude Code and Claude Design, instead of handing off static prototypes. As a senior creative technologist at NYL, you'll blend strong front-end engineering skills with design fluency, working closely with our engineering team and our development partner to help establish the standards, workflows, and quality bar that make this model work in production.

Requirements

Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
5+ years of experience in front-end development, or UX engineering role.
Expert in front-end development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and modern frameworks).
Experience with design tools and familiarity with handoff processes.
Knowledge of component-driven design and development methodologies.
Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG) and inclusive design practices.
Experience with version control and collaborative branching workflows (e.g., Git/GitHub) in multi-contributor codebases.
Experience contributing to or working within a codebase you don't own outright, such as an agency, vendor, or open-source repository, following someone else's conventions and review process.
Strong problem-solving abilities and a passion for creating polished, efficient user interfaces.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain technical details to both technical and non-technical team members.
A collaborative mindset with a proactive approach to bridging gaps between design and engineering.
Comfortable collaborating directly with external development partners' engineers day-to-day, adapting to their codebase and conventions while upholding NYL's quality bar.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience working on or contributing to a design system, preferably in an enterprise environment.
Hands-on experience building and validating front-end code with AI-assisted tools (e.g., Claude Code, Claude Design, GitHub Copilot) as part of a production workflow.
Experience working with or alongside an external development vendor or agency on a shared codebase.
Basic understanding of CMS integrations and performance optimization techniques.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain responsive, accessible front-end code for the NYL360 experience directly from design intent, composing existing design-system components and patterns to meet usability and design standards.
Help define and continuously refine the workflow that lets design work directly in NYL360's front-end codebase, including what a dev-ready contribution from design looks like and where design work ends and engineering review begins.
Help establish what constitutes production-ready code for design-authored contributions, including coding conventions, review checklists, and quality gates, so there's a consistent, auditable bar for what merges into the NYL360 codebase.
Work within NYL360's GitHub repository structure and branching strategy, following and helping refine the contribution workflow for design-originated commits in partnership with engineering and our development partner.
Work closely with internal front-end engineers and our development partner's engineering team to ensure component specifications are accurately implemented, troubleshoot discrepancies between design and code, and align on integration patterns as a hands-on collaborator.
Partner with design and engineering to define the annotation and documentation needed for design-authored code, such as happy paths, edge cases, states, and business rules, so contributions can be understood, reviewed, and maintained by any developer.
Ensure that all components are built to accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1) and are optimized for performance across multiple devices and platforms.
Act as a bridge between design, engineering, and our development partner, advocating for the best user experience while balancing technical feasibility and codebase constraints.
Stay current on AI-assisted design-to-code tools (e.g., Claude Code, Claude Design) and design-to-development best practices that could improve how design and engineering work together on NYL360.
Participate in code reviews, design reviews, and testing, including joint reviews with our development partner's engineers, to ensure design-authored code meets NYL360's quality standards.