Principal Engineer

As a Principal Engineer, you will help establish the engineering vision and act as the bridge between strategic intent and scalable execution in our Customized Experience Platform (CEP). This role drives technical direction and engineering strategy across experience channels with particular focus on content management, digital delivery, experimentation, mobile app engineering, platform observability and experience analytics, and developer experience. You will shape the paved path for teams building web, mobile, and content-driven experiences, ensuring platform investments improve delivery speed, reliability, business value, and measurable customer outcomes. Success in this role requires strong systems-level judgment, the ability to operate platforms as products (where engineering teams are your customers), and the credibility to lead through influence - evangelizing the "why" and bringing engineering teams along while collaborating closely with product, design, and senior technology leaders.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:  

Designing Solutions 

• Apply expert industry knowledge and broad understanding of multiple disciplines with technical knowledge focused on content management, digital delivery, experimentation, mobile/web app engineering, observability & analytics, and devex.  

• Articulate how components interact across product groups and how architectural choices improve delivery speed, quality, reliability, and customer outcomes. This includes cross-channel solution designs & architecture for CEP capabilities 

• Ability to work and problem solve independently on initiatives that align to the broader software engineering strategy. 

Implementing Solutions 

• Use independent, critical thinking to solve complex problems which are significant to the customer. Uses application and system data, as well as past experiences to inform decision making. 

• Leader in technical expertise; Develops most architecturally impactful components of solutions. 

• Embed with teams as needed to create engineering structures/patterns that enable the team to work collaboratively and effectively. This includes embedding with CEP platform engineers to unblock implementation. 

• Creates new development frameworks and collaborates with the team to create solution components that accelerate adoption of paved paths across web, mobile, and content-driven experiences. 

Learning and Applying New Techniques 

• Leads the initiative to research new techniques along with best practices and share it across organization. 

Collaborating Within the Team 

• Participate in team’s collaboration session to provide technical expertise to solve most complex and/or architecturally impactful problem/remove technical roadblocks for the team. 

• Participate in product planning and implementation. Helps product owner translate customer outcomes into technical strategy, capability roadmaps, and actionable engineering work, as needed. 

• Technical leader in system design across multiple teams; Provides broad and/or deep expertise in collaborating across teams to create solutions that lead to outcomes. 

• Broker solution design and implementation across product teams to achieve outcomes for the most critical technology and/or strategic priorities for the organization. 

Collaborating Across Teams 

• Promote cross team adherence to technology standards and target architecture. 

• Technical leader in system design across multiple teams; Provides broad and/or deep expertise in collaborating across teams to create solutions that lead to outcomes. 

• Broker solution design and implementation across product teams to achieve outcomes for the most critical technology and/or strategic priorities for the organization. 

Collaborating Across the Organization 

• Expert in design, developing, documenting and analyzing overall architecture of systems, including hardware and software. Work in collaboration with other product teams to provide technical expertise to engineers across the company. 

• Creates design patterns for the enterprise and provides technology insights that guide the strategic technology vision for the organization. 

• Provides the feedback loop from teams back to operations as new requirements for operationalizing products become necessary. May do this through PoCs or full implementations. 

Setting Product/Platform Technology Strategy 

• Define the high-level capabilities requirements for the product/ platform and collaborate with the teams across the organization. 

• Provide platform technology expertise to teams within product group as well as interdependent teams across the organization. 

Defining Engineering Standards/Patterns 

• Partner with the engineering community inside and outside Thrivent in establishing best practices. 

• Define and share engineering standards across internal teams and collaborate to help engineers apply these patterns to build solutions that achieve outcomes. 

• Participates in external activities including open-source software contributions and meetups. 

DevOps 

• Lead the resolution of critical incidents and provides technical leadership in proactively addressing critical production issues/outages. 

• Able to assess and introduce technology to build more stable, scalable, and resilient software. 

• Evaluate, recommend and execute new CI/CD components to make the products more stable for a given area. 

• Build partnership across technical areas to influence when needed. 

Selecting and Managing Technology Vendors 

• Consults on the evaluation process for software solutions - provides technical advise on how solutions play into the larger strategy of product areas. 

• Contribute in criteria evaluation for selecting the right platforms and softwares for the product team. 

Coaching Engineers 

• Provide guidance and reinforcement around established engineering best practices across product groups and the organization.   

• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to other engineers across the organization. 

• Provide trainings and demos to address knowledge gaps across teams and product groups. 

Recruiting and Building Talent 

• Engage in the tech community to build the Thrivent technology brand and position as the employer of choice in the market. 

• Contributes / helps in the recruitment process to hire the right engineering talent for the organization. 

• Models Thrivent’s leadership competencies: Model the Way, Rally the Team, and Deliver Outcomes. 

• Supports and/or develops an environment in which Thrivent employees and colleagues are focused on continuous improvement, exceptional employee engagement, and an unwavering commitment to our clients. Shapes and/or supports a culture that represents the Thrivent purpose, promise and values, ensuring that Thrivent’s trust and reputation remain strong with its clients. 

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QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS:   

 Required: 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience 

• 10+ years of experience in an engineering role  

• 5+ years of experience leading high performing technology teams 

• Proven record establishing architecture, standards, and reusable patterns for customer-facing digital experience channels, such as web, mobile, content management, digital asset management, experimentation, observability, or devex capabilities 

• Demonstrated ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences  

• Demonstrated participation and leadership in the broader technology community   

• Meet or exceed all expectations of a Lead Engineer role   

 Preferred:   

• Master’s degree in a related field  

• Financial Services industry experience  

• Coach / mentor other team members as appropriate  

Pay Transparency

Thrivent’s long-term growth depends on attracting, rewarding, and retaining people who are committed to helping others thrive with purpose. We accomplish this by offering a wide variety of market competitive compensation programs to attract, reward, and retain top talent. The applicable salary or hourly wage range for this full-time role is $161,436.00 - $218,415.00 per year, which factors in various geographic regions. The base pay actually offered will be determined by a variety of factors including, but not limited to, location, relevant experience, skills, and knowledge, business needs, market demand, and other factors Thrivent deems important.

Thrivent is unique in our commitment to helping people to be wise with money and live balanced and generous lives. That extends to our benefits.

The following benefits may be offered: various bonuses (including, for example, annual or long-term incentives); medical, dental, and vision insurance; health savings account; flexible spending account; 401k; pension; life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance; supplemental protection insurance; 20 days of Paid Time Off each year; Sick and Safe Time; 10 paid company holidays; Volunteer Time Off; paid parental leave; EAP; well-being benefits, and other employee benefits. Eligibility for receipt of these benefits is subject to the applicable plan/policy documents. Thrivent’s plans/policies are subject to change at any time at Thrivent’s discretion.

Thrivent provides Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) without regard to race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable local, state, or federal law. This policy applies to all employees and job applicants.

Thrivent is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] or call 800-847-4836 and request Human Resources.

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