Engineering Manager (Producer Experience)

Aflac Northern Ireland; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Aflac Northern Ireland seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the team behind our field-facing application used by Sales Agents and field leaders across the US. You will provide technical direction, coach engineers, and enable delivery in a regulated environment.

You will drive AI-native adoption, collaborate with US stakeholders, and ensure secure, high-quality software while shaping engineering practices and tooling for the future.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in CS/Software Engineering or STEM.
• Strong evidence of industry experience in software engineering.
• Proven track record of operating at an Engineering Manager level.
• Proven experience with full stack development including Java and Spring Boot REST services and Angular/TypeScript front ends.
• Experience building and running high-traffic applications on AWS.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g. GitHub Copilot, Kiro, Claude Code, Cursor).
• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing and DevOps in Agile environments.
• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with QA, Product, UX, Architecture and Production Support.
• Based in Northern Ireland with the Right to Work visa.

Responsibilities

• Lead a cross-functional team of engineers, providing people leadership and technical direction.
• Drive AI-native engineering adoption and secure, high-quality software delivery.
• Collaborate with Product, UX, Security and Production Support to deliver impactful solutions.
• Hire, interview and onboard engineers while guiding career growth and performance.
• Set architecture direction across front end, back end, mobile and data domains.

Skills

Software engineering

Engineering leadership

Full stack

Java

Spring Boot

Angular

TypeScript

AWS

AI tooling

CI/CD

DevOps

Agile

Stakeholder leadership

Cross-functional teams

Education

CS/Software Eng degree

Tools

AWS

GitHub Copilot

Kiro

Claude Code

Cursor

CI/CD tooling

Testing tools

Job description

The Team

We have an exciting opportunity to join Aflac Northern Ireland and lead the team behind one of the company's most visible field-facing applications. The Producer Experience team builds and runs the digital platform that Aflac's Sales Agents and field leaders across the US rely on every working day, on desktop, tablet and mobile. The platform supports tens of thousands of claims every month and much of what the team delivers is feedback straight from the field allowing you to see first-hand how people actually use the product.

You will lead a large cross-functional team, including software engineers, QA, UX, product, agile delivery and application support, and work closely with Solution Architects and stakeholders in the US business. The team has a strong engineering culture and a track record of modernising its tooling and practices, and is now adopting Aflac's AI-native way of building software.

The Role

As Engineering Manager, you will provide both technical direction and people leadership in equal measure. You'll help engineers to develop their careers, shape best practice in how we build and run our applications and create the space for people to do their best work. This role is as much about enabling others to succeed as it is about technology.

You will have a strong technical background, be passionate about supporting, coaching and managing a team of engineers, and have a reputation for successful delivery. You won't be afraid to get into the detail, sitting alongside our engineers to collaborate on solving complex problems.

This is also a role about leading people through change. Software engineering is being reshaped by AI, and Aflac is putting an AI-native development lifecycle in place across its teams. You will help your team adopt it with confidence, making sure the gains in speed and productivity come with the quality, security and ownership that a regulated business demands.

What you’ll do

As an Engineering Manager, you’ll lead a cross-functional team of engineers, combining people leadership, technical direction and hands-on expertise. You’ll help the team embrace AI-native engineering while delivering secure, high-quality products that make a meaningful difference to our sales agents.

Lead and develop your team

• Coach engineers to grow their skills, confidence and careers, with a particular focus on emerging AI-native capabilities.
• Create an inclusive, open environment where people feel able to contribute ideas, give feedback and challenge thinking.
• Give the team autonomy to make decisions, stepping in with clear direction when needed.
• Lead hiring, technical interviews and onboarding for your team.

Set the technical direction

• Guide engineering across front end, back end, mobile and data, setting clear expectations for architecture, code quality and performance.
• Support engineers in solving complex technical and business problems.
• Shape solution design alongside architects, engineering leaders and the wider team.
• Partner with Security to build resilient, defence-in-depth solutions that protect our systems and customer data.

Champion AI-native engineering

• Lead your team’s adoption of Aflac’s AI-native software development lifecycle.
• Embed AI into how the team plans, designs, builds, tests and reviews software.
• Help engineers develop skills in areas such as prompt and context design, AI-assisted testing and specification-driven development.
• Create space for safe experimentation, shared learning and responsible AI use.
• Set clear standards for reviewing, testing and owning AI-generated code.
• Measure what is working and share lessons that help shape our wider AI engineering approach.

Deliver products that make a difference

• Work with Product, UX and business colleagues to build secure, user-centered products for sales agents.
• Use agent feedback and product insights to prioritise the improvements that will have the greatest impact.
• Promote strong engineering practices, including automation, CI/CD, embedded testing, monitoring and observability.
• Get hands-on with code, pipelines and technical solutions when needed.
• Clearly communicate progress, value and risk to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Skills and experience

Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don't rule yourself out if you don't have everything on the list, it's your intellect and your attitude we are really after.

Essential

• Bachelor's or Master's degree or equivalent, preferably in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a STEM subject. Comparable commercial experience will also be considered.
• Strong evidence of industry experience in software engineering or application development.
• Proven track record of operating at an Engineering Manager level
• Proven experience of developing and managing a team including helping people to grow and develop through coaching, teaching or mentoring.
• Proven experience with full stack development, including Java and Spring Boot REST services and Angular / TypeScript front ends.
• Experience building and running high-traffic applications on AWS.
• Experience delivering responsive, multi-platform experiences across web and mobile platforms.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g. GitHub Copilot, Kiro, Claude Code, Cursor) and a clear view on how they change the way teams work.
• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing and DevOps as part of Agile software development and continuous delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with other teams including QA, Product, UX, Architecture and Production Support.
• Proven experience of dealing with key business stakeholders as well as being capable of deep dives in technical design reviews.
• A self-led learner, both to model behaviour to engineers and because you will need to proactively learn new skills, approaches and techniques.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, as you will be engaging in lots of 1:1 coaching.
• Candidates must be based in Northern Ireland with the relevant Right to Work visa.

Desirable - if you've got some of these, great; if not that's ok too

• Experience building AI-enabled features into customer- or user-facing products.
• Experience of product-led delivery, using user research, feedback and analytics to shape priorities.
• Familiarity with data engineering and integrating data into user-facing applications.
• Experience in financial services, insurance or another regulated industry.
• AWS certification or equivalent.
• Experience working with US companies, building relationships with teams in other locations and driving change from a remote location.
• Experience of delivering Agile solutions for customers or stakeholders located in different time zones.

So that's us. Thanks for taking the time to read this far. We look forward to hearing from you if you fancy leading a team that makes a real difference to the people who look after Aflac's customers. Working in an innovative tech company that runs locally but is supported by a well established, highly recognised Fortune 500 company in the US.

Aflac Northern Ireland is an equal opportunities employer.