Team Leader - Architecture Incubation

Why Wellmark
:
We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we’ve built our reputation on over 80 years’ worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors–our members.

Why Wellmark Technology?Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work.

Accountable for leading the incubation of new architecture capabilities at the data center level, turning emerging technologies and architectural concepts into proven, repeatable capabilities that can scale across the enterprise. Leads a team of architects through discovery, experimentation, proof-of-concept development, technical validation, and transition to operational ownership. Establishes clear guardrails, success measures, reference patterns, and adoption pathways so that new infrastructure, platform, data, integration, automation, security, and observability capabilities can be evaluated safely and advanced based on evidence.

Partners with data center engineering, infrastructure, security, operations, product, and enterprise architecture leaders to prioritize incubation opportunities, remove barriers, and align experiments with business outcomes, enterprise standards, and long-term technology strategy. Builds an environment that encourages disciplined innovation, rapid learning, technical excellence, and responsible handoff from incubation into production-ready service capabilities.

Preferred:

• Experience in regulated industries (e.g., healthcare, finance) and in environments with rigorous security, resilience, and compliance requirements.
• Certifications such as TOGAF, AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or similar architecture and infrastructure credentials.
• Experience leading technology incubation, proof-of-concepts, pilots, platform engineering, data center modernization, or transition of emerging capabilities into operational services.

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, or related field, or direct and applicable work experience.
• Minimum 10 years experience in an IT environment with a minimum of 7 years of architecture experience, including advanced knowledge of infrastructure and platform architecture, development methodologies, and solution design. Deep understanding of architecture frameworks, hybrid cloud and on-premises platforms, integration strategies, automation, security, resilience, and data center operations.
• Prior formal leadership skills typically gained by leading work teams, coaching, mentoring, and facilitating work activities, along with strong relationship management skills. Demonstrated ability to build collaborative and strategic relationships across architecture, data center engineering, infrastructure, security, operations, product, and vendor teams.
• Proven experience leading architecture teams, formally or informally, and advancing enterprise-scale capabilities from concept through technical validation and operational transition. Ability to think strategically, create clarity in ambiguous spaces, and communicate direction to technical and executive audiences.
• Stays informed on emerging technology trends and skillsets. Proven experience creating structured experiments, proof-of-concepts, pilots, and learning loops that reduce uncertainty and support evidence-based investment decisions. Encourages teams to surface assumptions, test them quickly, and resolve challenges.
• Ability to translate long-range technology goals into prioritized incubation themes, capability roadmaps, decision points, and executable plans.
• Effective consulting, critical thinking, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills. Uses data, technical evidence, risk analysis, and sound judgment to recommend whether…