Sr. Director Engineering

Who We Are

At Northwestern Mutual, our long-standing commitment to financial strength and client-first outcomes is paired with continued investment in technology to deliver a seamless, end-to-end experience for both advisors and clients.

About The Job

This Senior Director of Engineering role will lead our Illustrations and Digital Application teams—critical components of the risk purchase journey. The Illustrations team is focused on delivering an exceptional experience that clearly demonstrates the value and flexibility of Northwestern Mutual products, strengthens the trusted advisor–client relationship, and supports effective financial planning.

The Digital Application team is responsible for modernizing and sustaining our digital application platforms across Life, Disability Income, Annuities, and Long-Term Care—enabling efficient, scalable, and intuitive workflows for the field.

What You'll Do

• Demonstrates technical expertise and leadership.

• Leads the strategy and development of high impact solutions in the enterprise.

• Leads talent strategy and development for division, including building AI fluency and upskilling teams to effectively leverage emerging technologies.

• Organizes talent and manage budgets for optimal results.

• Establishes business aligned goals and lead the division to meet goals.

• Delivers operational excellence through the development of organizational strategies, engineering processes, and product quality standards.

• Collaborates with the business to understand business needs, strategy, customer needs and market trends.

• Acts as ambassador and representative for Northwestern Mutual's technology organization in community and technology events.

What You'll Bring To The Role

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.

• 9-14 years professional experience required.

• 3-7+ years of experience leading engineering teams including:

• Leading through multiple engineering teams and their respective leads.

• Growing engineering skill sets in others.

• Demonstrated ability to thoughtfully drive the adoption of AI within engineering teams, identifying high-value use cases, enabling team capability, and ensuring responsible, scalable implementation aligned to business outcomes.

• Developing future engineering leaders.

• Providing direct feedback and performance reviews.

• Creating tech strategy and growing business relationships.

• Deep technical knowledge and broad understanding of the business.

• Ability to successfully communicate to both technical and non-technical audiences in varying forms and all levels of detail.

• Solid understanding of design patterns and architecture.

• Ability to influence teams, technology or business leaders on impactful issues and decisions.

Skills You'll Have

Talent Development

Coaching & Mentoring

Adaptive Communication

Cross Functional Partnering

Change Management

Compensation Range:

Pay Range - Start:

$196,000.00

Pay Range - End:

$294,000.00

Geographic Specific Pay Structure:

Structure 110:

$215,600.00 USD - $323,400.00 USD

Structure 115:

$225,440.00 USD - $338,160.00 USD

We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you’re living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.