Senior Software Engineer

Berkley•Urbandale, IA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Software Engineer is responsible for leading the design, development, implementation, and support of new software applications and enhancements to existing capabilities that are critical to business operations. This role owns complex, high-impact features and architectural components across front-end and back-end systems, influences technical direction and standards, and mentors engineers while collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, reliable, and high-performing software.

Requirements

At least five years of relevant software engineering experience or equivalent demonstrated proficiency, including two or more years leading technical efforts and mentoring other engineers.
Advanced proficiency in front-end and back-end engineering, with deep expertise in one area and strong competency in the other (e.g., React/Next.js, Tailwind, Jest for front-end; Node.js, Java, .NET, GraphQL, REST for back-end).
Proven ability to lead the design and implementation of complex, high-impact functionality.
Skilled in modern web application architecture and API design, able to create and review design specifications, interface contracts, and architectural artifacts considering performance, stability, and supportability across multiple systems.
Superior problem-solving and analytical ability to diagnose and resolve complex issues spanning application, middleware, and infrastructure layers.
Capable of analyzing business processes and recommending technology solutions to improve efficiency and outcomes.
Strong experience with relational databases, including Microsoft SQL Server queries, stored procedures, tables, and views, and working knowledge of NoSQL, with the ability to optimize for performance, scalability, and reliability.
Hands-on experience with Git-based workflows, CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions), automated testing, environment management, and feature flag strategies.
Operational experience with cloud-native architectures and containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Deep understanding of secure coding practices, dependency and secrets management, vulnerability remediation, and compliance with internal controls and regulatory requirements.
Proficiency in instrumentation (logging, metrics, distributed tracing), defining SLIs/SLOs, and implementing optimizations to ensure high-performing, resilient systems.
Demonstrated ability to mentor and coach engineers, developers, and interns, providing guidance on coding standards, design patterns, best practices, and fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to interact with technical and business stakeholders at all levels and facilitate technical discussions and influence architectural decisions.
Self-motivated with a high degree of initiative and mature judgment, strong organizational and time-management skills, and ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment with minimal supervision while managing multiple priorities.
Deep familiarity with Lean-Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) and full SDLC practices, including backlog refinement, estimation, code review, documentation, and automated testing.
Strong customer service orientation and sense of urgency, with capability to provide high-quality support to end users and partner teams and participate in rotating on-call support for production systems.
Ability to quickly learn and apply new technologies, frameworks, and systems, staying current on emerging trends in cloud, DevSecOps, and software engineering practices.
Mastery of common IDEs and platforms such as Visual Studio, VS Code, and the Atlassian suite; source control using Git; and collaboration tools used across the delivery lifecycle.
Demonstrates WRBC core competencies, innovation behaviors, and behavioral competencies while performing essential duties and responsibilities.

Nice To Haves

Experience with insurance core system engineering in Guidewire Gosu.
Familiarity with Angular or other frameworks beyond React and Node.
Knowledge of property and casualty insurance industry processes and terminology.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and delivery of complex, cross-team features and epics end-to-end, decomposing and sequencing work for multiple engineers and aligning solutions to strategic business objectives.
Translate business requirements and non-functional needs into scalable, performant, and supportable systems and recommend technology approaches that improve business processes and outcomes.
Define, document, and advocate for engineering standards, design patterns, and quality expectations, including comprehensive test strategies (unit, integration, contract, end-to-end, performance, resiliency).
Perform thorough peer reviews, serve as approver for critical changes, and coach team members to prevent defects and improve code health and maintainability.
Architect and continuously improve CI/CD pipelines and release practices (e.g., canary releases, blue/green deployments, feature flags) to enable safe, reliable production releases and rollbacks.
Enforce change management and deployment/runbook readiness, driving reliability and reducing mean time to recovery through proactive automation.
Drive backlog refinement and story mapping for complex initiatives, challenging and clarifying acceptance criteria and producing/reviewing architecture and design artifacts (ADRs, API/interface contracts).
Select appropriate architectural and design patterns, making informed trade-offs for performance, stability, and supportability, and lead efforts to reduce technical debt and enhance usability and supportability.
Define and own SLIs/SLOs and error budgets for services; instrument systems with logging, metrics, and distributed tracing; and lead load/performance testing, capacity planning, and cost/performance optimization.
Analyze telemetry to identify systemic bottlenecks and drive reliability improvements across applications.
Champion secure-by-design practices, including threat modeling, least privilege, and secure secrets and dependency management.
Ensure remediation of vulnerabilities and alignment with internal controls and compliance requirements, guiding SBOM hygiene and patch planning and mentoring engineers in secure coding.
Lead triage of high-priority incidents and coordinate responses across teams, driving root cause analysis and blameless post-mortems with actionable follow-ups.
Elevate operational runbooks and readiness checklists; participate in and help optimize the rotating on-call schedule; and provide high-quality technical support and consultation to end users and partner teams.
Sponsor and lead technical spikes and proofs-of-concept to de-risk delivery and inform architectural direction.
Evaluate and introduce tools, frameworks, and patterns that improve developer productivity, scalability, and reliability, using data (including A/B testing where appropriate) to validate and socialize changes.
Produce and curate system-level and architectural documentation, including ADRs, interface specifications, and operational runbooks, ensuring documentation is current.
Contribute to the internal knowledge base and deliver targeted mentoring and training to peers and end users in one-on-one and small-group settings.
Collaborate closely with product, design, QA, and operations; proactively facilitate Agile ceremonies (planning, reviews, retrospectives) and cross-team technical forums.
Mentor and coach engineers at multiple levels, providing guidance on development standards, code quality, and modeling constructive feedback and a growth-oriented, inclusive culture.
Deepen expertise in BRSS applications, business processes, and system interfaces; stay current on frameworks, cloud, and DevSecOps practices and disseminate learnings through brown bag sessions and design reviews.
Help build the technical vision and roadmap in partnership with subsidiaries for the future advancement of regional platform applications.
Act as a trusted mentor and technical coach for software engineers, software developers, and interns, providing guidance on design decisions, coding standards, and best practices.
Foster a culture of continuous learning through pair programming, code reviews, knowledge-sharing sessions, and support individual development plans and career growth within the team.