Sr. Manager, Research & Innovation - WEX Technology

WEX•Maine, NY

3d•$192,700 - $211,700•Remote

About The Position

WEX is seeking a Sr. Manager, Research & Innovation to lead their R&I function within the Health & Benefits organization. This role is responsible for identifying, evaluating, and prototyping emerging technologies that will shape the company's next-generation platform capabilities. The individual will own the innovation pipeline end-to-end, from scanning the technology landscape to partnering with Architecture and Product teams to integrate innovations into production roadmaps. This is a hands-on leadership role that combines strategic technology foresight with the ability to build working prototypes. The ideal candidate is a technologist energized by emerging technologies, capable of translating cutting-edge concepts into practical, enterprise-scale solutions.

Requirements

8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering.
3+ years leading innovation, R&D, or advanced engineering initiatives.
Hands-on technical proficiency with the ability to personally build proof-of-concept implementations across multiple technology domains.
Track record of technology evaluation that led to successful adoption decisions.
Experience translating research into practice—taking concepts from whitepapers, conferences, or vendor pitches and determining real-world applicability.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both engineering and business audiences.
Demonstrated ability to quickly learn and prototype with unfamiliar technologies, languages, and frameworks.
Solid foundation in distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS and/or Azure), and modern application architectures.
Familiarity with AI/ML concepts including large language models, prompt engineering, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation.
Understanding of API design, event-driven architectures, and integration patterns.
Awareness of security and compliance considerations in regulated industries.
Genuinely curious about emerging technology.
Comfortable with ambiguity and able to structure exploration when the destination isn't clear.
Pragmatic optimist who can separate hype from substance and identify what's actually production-ready.
Skilled at building consensus and generating excitement for new ideas across skeptical audiences.
Resilient in the face of failed experiments—you treat negative results as valuable data.

Nice To Haves

HIPAA, PCI-DSS experience is a plus.
Background in healthcare technology, benefits administration, or payments/fintech.
Experience with agentic AI systems, workflow orchestration, or autonomous agent architectures.
Familiarity with developer experience tooling, platform engineering, or internal developer platforms.
Contributions to open-source projects or published technical writing.
Experience managing vendor relationships and technology partnerships.

Responsibilities

Own and operate the innovation funnel from Ideation → Validation → PoC → Incubation → Graduation, managing initiatives across revenue-generating and internal efficiency tracks.
Develop structured intake processes for innovation ideas from across the organization and prioritize based on strategic fit and feasibility.
Define success criteria for each pipeline stage and make go/no-go recommendations to leadership.
Maintain visibility into pipeline status and communicate progress to stakeholders through regular readouts.
Continuously scan the technology landscape for emerging trends, tools, and techniques relevant to fintech, healthcare, benefits administration, and enterprise platforms.
Monitor competitor and industry developments including product launches, patent filings, conference presentations, and open-source releases.
Evaluate new technologies against architectural principles, compliance requirements, and operational constraints.
Build and maintain a technology radar that informs architectural and product decisions.
Produce written assessments and recommendations to aid leadership in technology adoption decisions.
Lead hands-on development of proof-of-concept implementations to demonstrate the viability and value of emerging technologies.
Design PoCs to answer specific technical and business questions with minimal investment.
Build working prototypes across a range of technology areas including AI/ML, agentic systems, developer tooling, integration patterns, and user experience innovations.
Document PoC outcomes with clear findings, limitations, and recommendations for next steps.
Ensure successful PoCs can be evolved into production-ready patterns.
Explore applications of large language models, agentic workflows, and AI-assisted development practices.
Evaluate decentralized identity, passkeys, zero-trust architectures, and privacy-enhancing technologies.
Investigate advanced analytics, real-time processing, and intelligent automation opportunities.
Identify tools, frameworks, and practices that improve developer productivity and platform usability.
Establish relationships with technology vendors for early access to roadmaps, betas, and partnership opportunities.
Engage with academic institutions, research labs, and industry consortia to stay connected to foundational research.
Represent WEX at conferences, meetups, and technology forums; contribute thought leadership through writing and speaking.
Facilitate vendor evaluations and pilot programs in partnership with Procurement and Legal.
Lead and mentor a small team of research engineers, fostering a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and rigorous evaluation.
Create an environment where creative exploration is balanced with disciplined execution.
Coach team members on technical skills, research methodology, and stakeholder communication.
Collaborate closely with Architecture, Engineering, Product, and Security teams to ensure R&I efforts align with organizational priorities.