AVP, End User Engineering

AVP IT Engineering - IE05AE

We’re determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. The Hartford is accelerating toward AI‑first engineering, and End User Services needs a leader to drive that shift across the platforms our employees rely on every day.

• Set the engineering and reliability strategy for collaboration, digital workspace, and the platforms connecting them; translate it into a multi‑year roadmap aligned to the CTO’s AI‑first engineering direction.
• Set and own the engineering organization’s OKRs—translating collaboration, workspace, reliability, and AI‑first strategy into clear Objectives and measurable Key Results, aligned to CTO‑level OKRs.
• Operationalize Reliability Engineering across owned platforms—SLOs, incident standards, RE Squad integration, and run‑operations‑to‑RE alignment—consistent with the firm’s RE operating model.
• Drive an AI‑first, automation‑first engineering culture—AI‑first SDLC standards, infrastructure‑as‑code, automated and agentic remediation, release pipelines, and systematic elimination of manual toil.
• Build end‑to‑end observability and digital employee experience monitoring; make platform and experience health visible, predictive, and tied to business impact.
• Lead, grow, and modernize a team of engineering directors and their organizations—raising the bar on technical depth, AI‑first engineering practice, and reliability ownership.
• Partner with security, identity, networking, infrastructure, and the Reliability Engineering community to deliver resilient, compliant, performant employee technology.
• Own vendor and platform relationships from a position of engineering strength; ensure roadmaps, SLAs, and integrations meet reliability and experience standards.
• Define and report the Key Results that matter—availability and reliability (SLOs/SLIs, error budgets), AI‑first adoption, digital employee experience, and toil/automation ratios—and review progress against OKRs with executive leadership on a regular cadence.

• AI‑first engineering (central to this role):
  Proven leadership applying AI‑first and AI‑assisted engineering at scale—embedding generative AI, agentic automation, and AI‑driven standards into how platforms are designed, built, and operated.
• Microsoft 365 ecosystem:
  Deep, current command of the collaboration and digital workspace estate (Teams, endpoint management, virtual desktop, etc.).
• Reliability / site reliability engineering: A track record in observability, and modern incident management.
• Outcome‑based leadership:
  Fluency leading teams through OKR‑based goal setting and outcome measurement.

• Intune;
  Windows
  365 or Azure Virtual Desktop/Citrix;
• Observability platforms (Nexthink, Dynatrace, Splunk);
• Terraform/Ansible;
• Power Shell/Python;
• Microsoft
  365, including Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot.

• 12+ years in technology engineering and operations, including 5+ years leading multi‑team engineering organizations (managing managers/directors).
• Proven record driving an AI‑first or AI‑assisted engineering transformation at scale—embedding AI and automation into how engineering teams build and operate.
• A track record building or transforming a reliability engineering practice—SLOs, incident management, and measurable toil reduction.
• Deep engineering background in collaboration and/or digital workspace platforms (Microsoft
  365/Teams, voice, endpoint/EUC, virtual desktop, productivity tooling).
• Hands‑on credibility with automation and observability tooling.
• Experience shifting an organization from operations‑led to engineering‑led delivery, including vendor and managed‑service environments.
• Experience leading through OKRs and outcome‑based goal setting.
• Enterprise‑scale experience in a regulated industry (financial services/insurance preferred).
• Based in or able to work in the greater Hartford, CT area on a hybrid schedule (three days per week in office).

• Familiarity with agentic operations /…