Sr. Manager, Applications Development – Remote

Symetra • ,

8d • $141,600 - $236,000 • Remote

About The Position

Symetra has an exciting new opportunity to join us as a Senior Manager, Applications Development for our Retirement Division! As a Senior Manager of Software Engineering within the Retirement Division, you will lead a team of developers responsible for building, enhancing, and supporting annuity-business applications. These systems include both custom-built and vendor-configured solutions that support Symetra’s core business functions. In this high-impact role, you'll provide technical direction, oversee software delivery practices, and manage a team of skilled engineers. You’ll also cultivate strong relationships with Product, internal customers, and external partners, balancing people leadership, technical direction, execution, and strategic partnership.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field preferred; High school diploma required.
• 9+ years of relevant experience, including 2+ years managing technical teams.
• Proven experience managing teams of 7+ software engineers, Quality Assurance, and Technical Program Managers (TPMs).
• Strong software engineering background with deep technical expertise and hands-on experience in one or more modern programming languages such as C#/.NET, TypeScript, or Python. Able to provide technical leadership, evaluate implementation approaches, and effectively challenge and guide senior engineers.
• Strong understanding of modern cloud architecture and engineering practices, including serverless, event-driven, and containerized solutions, with AWS experience strongly preferred.
• Experience leading teams responsible for API-driven integrations with enterprise and external SaaS platforms; experience within insurance or financial services is a plus.
• Practical experience developing and managing APIs throughout their lifecycle—including design, documentation, deployment, security, monitoring, and scaling—using API management platforms such as Apigee or equivalents.
• Strong data management skills, including SQL and NoSQL databases, operational data store deployment, and GraphQL APIs.
• Solid understanding of software architecture and application lifecycle management, with experience in modern microservices-based patterns such as Event-Driven Architecture.
• Demonstrated success leading multiple engineering teams in close partnership with Product, including influencing roadmaps and PI planning, evaluating delivery commitments against engineering capacity, navigating competing priorities, and constructively challenging decisions when necessary to protect customer value, quality, technical health, and sustainable delivery.
• Exposure to AI/ML integration in software development, with familiarity using Generative AI tools such as GitHub Copilot and embedding AI-driven automation into modern digital solutions.
• Able to travel occasionally to meet the needs of the business.

Nice To Haves

• Experience within insurance or financial services is a plus.
• AWS experience strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic and technical direction to the engineering team.
• Guide the adoption of modern technologies and drive system-wide improvements.
• Lead delivery across multiple projects, aligning resources with business priorities.
• Improve development processes, tools, and team scalability.
• Attract, develop, and retain top engineering talent through coaching and career planning.
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and high-performing team culture.
• Partner with business leaders to align technology solutions with strategic goals.
• Serve as the senior engineering partner to Product leadership, bringing an independent engineering perspective to roadmap and PI planning, challenging priorities and assumptions when appropriate, and ensuring commitments appropriately balance customer value, delivery capacity, technical health, quality, and operational risk.
• Maintain a strong understanding of work across engineering teams, ensuring engineers understand the outcomes they are driving, and that engineering investment is producing measurable business and customer value.
• Ensure clear communication, manage expectations, and deliver high-quality outcomes.
• Combine strategic thinking with hands-on technical expertise.
• Mentor future leaders and promote continuous learning and innovation.

Benefits

• Flexible full-time or hybrid telecommuting arrangements
• 401(k) plan with immediate vesting and company matching up to 6%
• Paid time away including vacation and sick time, flex days and ten paid holidays
• Company matching for community contributions

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: Associate degree