Director, Individual Solutions Technology – Distribution and Product Lifecycle Technology; Hybrid

Overview

Position Title:

Engineering Dir.* (internal title at Securian Financial). The Director of Individual Solutions Distribution and Product Lifecycle Technology leads technology capabilities that enable the Individual Solutions business. This leader is accountable for channel partner distribution enablement, product development lifecycle, and risk ecosystem platforms to be modern, resilient, customer-centric, and aligned to drive measurable business outcomes. The role partners to drive commercial success in the individual life and annuity markets, advancing key business and technology strategies.

This role champions the technology strategy that enhances end-to-end channel partner and customer experiences, accelerates product innovation, and strengthens risk and actuarial capabilities. You will collaborate with product managers, business partners, architects, and engineering leaders to remove impediments, advance enterprise priorities, and ensure our platforms run safely, securely, and efficiently. This role requires a technology-forward, outcome-driven leader who excels at building high-performing teams, influencing across the organization, and inspiring teams to deliver meaningful value through our people, our partnerships, and our purpose to win in the Individual Solutions market.

• Strategic Leadership & Partnership
  • Collaborates closely with product, engineering, and business leaders to shape business objectives, align on strategic outcomes, and ensure readiness to deliver technology across distribution, product, and risk capabilities.
  • Advances the Individual Solutions technology strategic plan in close partnership with key technology and product directors and business stakeholders.
  • Develops holistic approaches to enhancing end-to-end experiences and supporting capabilities by advocating for capability improvement aligned with business strategies, bringing innovative and external perspectives in line with evolving market, competitive, and internal landscapes.
  • Creates and continually advances the long-term technical vision and multi-year roadmap for the technology platforms supporting distribution, product development, and risk.
  • Applies a business-focused mindset—deeply understanding customer, channel partner, and business partner needs to inform decisions and maximize enterprise value.
  • Actively participates in business planning, budgeting, and portfolio management to ensure strategic alignment and responsible investment of technology resources.
  • Sponsor and support enterprise projects, initiatives and market-specific business cases that require technical partnership.

• Platform Ownership & Delivery Excellence
  • Serves as the senior escalation point for engineering leaders and their teams across multiple capabilities, platforms, and cross-functional areas, removing impediments, addressing risks, and ensuring timely issue resolution.
  • Ensures platforms operate safely, securely, and reliably; oversees the definition of, and upholds, SLAs, SLIs, and SLOs; champions proactive monitoring, resilience, and quality engineering practices in partnership with Reliability Engineering and Operations.
  • Leads the design, delivery, and continuous improvement of customer-centric technology solutions that enhance the channel partner/advisor experience, improve ease of doing business, and strengthen Individual Solutions capabilities.
  • Partners with enterprise architecture and shared services to evaluate technology options, promote reuse, drive simplification, and rationalize redundant applications.

• Talent Leadership & Team Development
  • Builds, inspires, and leads high-performing leaders of people, leaders of leaders, and their engineering teams; attracts top talent, cultivates leadership capability, and fosters an inclusive environment where individuals do their best work.
  • Coaches and develops team members, engineering managers, and platform leads—maximizing potential, aligning strengths to work, and supporting career growth.
  • Owns and directs staffing strategies including effective use of global delivery partners, vendors, contingent workers, and managed services to optimize capacity,…