Senior Engineering Manager, Advanced Product Designer (APD)

Guidewire Software; Mississauga; On-site; CAD 148,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work environment

Health and wellness benefits

Paid time off

Market-competitive pay and incentives

Career growth opportunities

Job summary

Guidewire Software’s Application Platform organization drives APD as a cloud-based product-modeling capability for insurers, enabling rapid design and deployment of products. As a Senior Engineering Manager for APD, you will lead 2–3 small teams and their leads, guiding evolution of APD on App Platform 2.0 with a strong focus on scalable design-time and runtime capabilities.

You will partner with PM, Architecture, UX, Platform Eng, and SRE to translate strategy into concrete plans, drive

Qualifications

• Demonstrated AI use in engineering leadership and product delivery.
• Extensive SaaS/platform experience with engineering leadership responsibilities.
• Strong backend engineering background with distributed systems and cloud-native architecture.
• Experience building cloud apps on AWS with Kubernetes and CI/CD practices.
• Experience guiding architecture and technical execution for enterprise software.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple APD engineering teams (2–3) and their tech leads.
• Drive architecture, delivery, and operational maturity of APD on App Platform 2.0.
• Own delivery across APD’s design-time/run-time capabilities and integrations.
• Collaborate with PM, Architecture, UX, Platform Eng, Security, SRE to translate strategy into execution.
• Shape APD’s role as a product-model source across the platform and APIs.
• Improve interoperability with Rules, Schema Editor, Package Manager, App Manager.
• Advocate AI/automation/data-driven practices across teams.
• Establish execution discipline and high-quality outcomes in delivery and security.
• Hire and develop senior engineers and tech leads.

Skills

AI-driven leadership

SaaS/platform product leadership

Java backend | distributed systems

Kubernetes & cloud-native

CI/CD & DevOps

Cross-functional leadership

Communication & leadership

Data-driven decision making

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD tooling

Cloud APIs

Job description

Summary

Join Guidewire’s Application Platform organization within Product Development & Operations (PDO), where we build the shared platform capabilities that underpin Guidewire’s cloud products and developer experience. Within this space, Advanced Product Designer (APD) is a core App Platform capability focused on product configuration and lifecycle management alongside services such as Rules, Package Manager, App Manager, and related platform tooling.
APD is a cloud-based product design capability that helps insurers design, and deploy insurance products more rapidly. It supports the full product lifecycle and helps customers define product structure, generate downstream artifacts, and accelerate delivery through Cloud APIs and related platform integrations.
As a Senior Engineering Manager for APD, you will lead multiple small engineering teams and their technical leads, guiding the evolution of APD on App Platform 2.0. This role combines people leadership, technical strategy, architectural stewardship, and cross-functional execution. You will help scale APD as a strategic product-modeling capability, strengthen its integration with adjacent App Platform services, and drive the next phase of Guidewire’s cloud, API, and AI-enabled product configuration experience.

Job Description

What you’ll do

• Lead multiple APD engineering teams, typically 2–3 small teams and their technical leads, building a high-accountability, high-trust culture that emphasizes coaching, inclusion, innovation, and continuous learning.

• Drive the architecture, delivery, and operational maturity of APD on App Platform 2.0, ensuring services are scalable, secure, observable, and aligned to Guidewire engineering standards.

• Own delivery across APD’s key design-time and runtime capabilities, including the continued evolution of APD services, APIs, and supporting platform integrations.

• Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, UX, Platform Engineering, Security, and SRE to translate product strategy into execution plans, drive launches, and ensure APD meets customer, compliance, and reliability expectations.

• Help shape APD’s role as the product-model source of truth across the platform, including its relationship to schemas, rules, APIs, downstream digital experiences, and broader App Platform services.

• Drive platform stewardship by working across adjacent capabilities such as Rules, Schema Editor, Package Manager, App Manager, and other lifecycle services to improve interoperability, reuse, and developer experience.

• Champion responsible adoption of AI, automation, and data-driven engineering practices across the organization, both in how teams build software and in how APD capabilities evolve over time.

• Establish strong execution discipline across multiple teams by setting clear priorities, improving planning and delivery predictability, and ensuring high-quality outcomes across feature delivery, reliability, and security.

• Hire, coach, and develop senior engineers and technical leads, raising the technical and leadership bar while creating growth opportunities for the organization.

• At Guidewire, we foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, and responsible use of AI—empowering our teams to continuously leverage emerging technologies and data-driven insights to enhance productivity and outcomes.

Required

• Demonstrated ability to embrace AI and apply it to engineering leadership, product delivery, and team productivity, using data-driven insight to improve outcomes.

• Extensive software engineering experience in SaaS or platform product development, with substantial experience managing engineering teams and leading through technical leads or multiple teams.

• Strong hands‑on technical background in Java and modern backend engineering, with depth in distributed systems, microservices, cloud-native architecture, and secure multi‑tenant platforms.

• Proven experience building and operating cloud applications on modern platforms such as AWS, including Kubernetes, containerization, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.

• Experience driving architectural decisions, design reviews, and technical execution for platform or enterprise software products.

• Demonstrated experience integrating AI/ML or GenAI capabilities into production software, platforms, or software engineering workflows.

• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to influence product, architecture, UX, platform, and operations stakeholders.

• Strong communication, judgment, and organizational leadership, with a track record of delivering measurable business and engineering outcomes across a broad scope.

Preferred

• Experience with product configuration, product modeling, rules, or lifecycle-management systems, ideally in insurance or another complex enterprise domain.

• Familiarity with APD, PolicyCenter, Cloud APIs, App Events, digital integrations, or adjacent App Platform services is strongly preferred.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Your impact

In your first six months, you will establish leadership across the APD organization, align multiple teams around a coherent technical and delivery strategy, and improve execution across architecture, delivery, and operational health. You will help clarify APD’s design-time and runtime service evolution, strengthen its role in Guidewire’s App Platform strategy, and accelerate delivery of product-modeling capabilities that feed downstream APIs, integrations, and digital experiences.

Over time, your influence will extend beyond APD itself. You will shape how product configuration capabilities evolve across App Platform, raise the leadership capacity of the organization, and help Guidewire deliver a more unified, scalable, and AI-enabled product development experience for insurers.

What’s in it for you

The people we employ give their all, and in return, we offer flexibility wherever we can, such as:

• Flexible work environment

• Health and wellness benefits

• Paid time off programs including volunteer time off

• Market-competitive pay and incentive programs

• Continual development and internal career growth opportunities

All new hires participate in our in-person orientation process to ensure a strong start at Guidewire.

At Guidewire, you’ll help transform the way the world’s P&C insurers do business, contributing to our wider mission of delivering innovation, efficiency, and measurable value for our customers and communities.

The Canadian CAD base salary range for this full-time position is $148,000 - $185,000. Your base pay will depend on your experience, skills, education, training, and location among other factors. All full-time positions or part-time roles working 30 hours or more a week at Guidewire are eligible for benefits that support their health and well-being including health, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, and a company sponsored retirement plan. In addition, some roles may be eligible for the annual company bonus plan, commissions, and/or long term incentive awards which are contingent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, company and employee performance.

About Guidewire

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow us on Twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

Guidewire Software, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to an inclusive workplace, and believe that a diversity of perspectives, abilities, and cultures is a key to our success. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. All offers are contingent upon passing a criminal history and other background checks where it’s applicable to the position.