Lead Application Development Engineer; Hybrid

Join American Family Insurance as a Lead Applications Development Engineer and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our technology landscape. In this role, you'll provide technical vision and leadership while remaining hands‑on with Java development and RESTful API development architecting scalable solutions that deliver meaningful business impact. You'll have the opportunity to help drive the team's evolution by leveraging emerging technologies such as Claude AI and cloud-native platforms, modernising legacy applications, and leading critical system migrations to modern data centre and cloud environments.

Beyond building innovative solutions, you'll guide and mentor teammates, introduce new ways of working, and champion best practices that enhance the team's effectiveness, efficiency, and long‑term success. Collaborating across teams, you'll help create high‑quality software that powers exceptional experiences for our customers and the business. You will report to the Engineering Delivery Manager. Role not eligible for sponsorship. #LI-Hybrid Position Compensation Range: $ - $ Pay Rate Type:
Salary Compensation may vary based on the job level and your geographic work location. Relocation support is offered for eligible candidates.

• Drive Technical Strategy and Solution Design Serve as a trusted technical expert during project planning, helping define resource needs, required skills, timelines, tools, and technologies. Evaluate and contribute to proof‑of‑concept initiatives that validate innovative solutions and reduce project risk. Translate business goals, requirements, and use cases into scalable technical designs and actionable development plans.
• Architect High‑Quality Solutions Analyze complex system requirements and design robust, efficient, and maintainable solutions. Identify and manage system dependencies, ensuring seamless integration across platforms and applications. Partner with stakeholders and technical teams to validate architectural decisions and drive best practices.
• Provide advanced Java coding expertise and hands‑on support for high‑risk features, critical initiatives, and complex technical issues. Guide teams through architectural and development challenges by recommending effective solutions and implementation strategies.
• Champion Quality and Continuous Improvement Lead and participate in testing activities, including unit testing and system integration testing, to ensure high‑quality deliverables. Facilitate development reviews, walkthroughs, and knowledge‑sharing sessions that strengthen team capabilities. Mentor team members by sharing technical expertise, best practices, and problem‑solving approaches.
• Promote Collaboration and Operational Excellence Collaborate with cross‑functional partners to optimise system workflows, data utilisation, and business processes. Document design decisions, estimates, technical assumptions, code modules, and performance metrics to maintain organisational standards and support future scalability. Ensure technology solutions align with business objectives while improving efficiency, reliability, and user experience.

You are a technical leader who bridges business needs and technology solutions, influences key design decisions, solves complex challenges, and empowers teams to deliver scalable, high‑performing systems that drive organisational success. You have the opportunity to help the team grow in utilisation of Claude for coding reviews and analysis as well as cloud technologies.

• Demonstrated experience analysing and understanding complex software and systems.
• Demonstrated experience communicating technical information to technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Demonstrated experience developing and delivering multiple solution design approaches to meet customer needs.
• Demonstrated experience developing complex software and systems using one or more programming languages.
• Demonstrated experience analysing requirements and estimating project size, scope, and work effort for software solutions.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical guidance,…