Tech Lead - Rules Engine

Pacific Asset Management, LLC; London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

UnderwriteMe, une entreprise Insurtech, recherche un Tech Lead pour diriger le développement de son moteur de souscription au sein de sa plateforme décisionnelle. Le candidat idéal aura une solide expérience technique en Java, Spring Boot et en gestion d'équipes. Ce rôle inclut le mentorat des membres de l'équipe et la prise de décisions stratégiques en matière de conception de systèmes. Une excellente opportunité de faire avancer les projets innovants dans un environnement dynamique.

Benefits

Bon paquet de bénéfices

Flexibilité de travail

Activités de team building

Initiatives de bien-être

Qualifications

• Capacité à équilibrer entre performance, évolutivité et maintenabilité.
• Expérience en leadership d'équipe et mentorat.
• Solides compétences en communication pour expliquer des concepts techniques.

Responsibilities

• Diriger une équipe de 6 ingénieurs pour livrer et améliorer le moteur de souscription.
• Mentorer les ingénieurs tout en favorisant une culture de propriété.
• Fournir un leadership technique et orienter les décisions de conception du système.

Skills

Gestion des parties prenantes

Résolution de problèmes

Java

Spring Boot

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

AWS

Education

Diplôme en informatique ou dans un domaine connexes

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

Helm

Job description

UnderwriteMe is a UK based Insurtech creating disruptive SaaS solutions for the insurance industry. We are on a mission to make life insurance more widely accessible, providing technology to ensure people and their loved ones are protected when the inevitable happens.

We are wholly owned by Pacific Life, but operate as an autonomous business within the company. This gives us the best of both worlds - the freedom to act like a technology scale-up, with the stability of a large company meaning longer-term thinking and no last minute pivots to gain our next funding round. Pacific Life Re became 100% shareholder of UnderwriteMe in 2017 given the strategic synergy with its reinsurance business.

UnderwriteMe has two main products we sell to customers:

Decision Platform - a B2B enterprise platform that provides a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine used by over 30 insurers to power their underwriting decisions. The product is sold across UK & Ireland, Asia-Pacific and North America. The platform combines our engine with technology to source and process third-party information supporting underwriting decisions for insurers. We are already working on capabilities, powered by AI, to make these decisions even more efficient.

Protection Platform - a B2B2C marketplace used by over 15,000 advisors to power quoting and purchase of protection products in the UK. We currently deliver 16% of the UK markets protection policies and we are already working to increase our reach.

UnderwriteMe is part-way through a multi-year transformation to adopt a Product Operating Model, modernising our architecture and moving our products to a SaaS model. We still have much to do, and we’re looking for people to join us on this challenging and exciting journey.

Pacific Life and UnderwriteMe are both organisations focussed on creating a great environment in which to work. We recognise that attracting and retaining top talent is how we continue to improve the company. We pay well and as we are part of a mature organisation, we have a good benefits package. We value and celebrate diversity in our teams and continually work to celebrate the uniqueness of each person. We work in a hybrid model and we expect our leaders to flex where they work based on the needs of the company and their teams.

About The Role

We are looking for a Tech Lead to join us to lead the development of the Underwriting Engine within the Decision Platform product. The role of Tech Lead at UnderwriteMe is a combination of hands-on technical expertise and people leadership. You will report into the Director of Engineering for Decision Platform, being part of the technical leadership team for the Decision Platform product.

The Underwriting Engine is a key part of our software offering allowing insurers to design rules to help with their customer journey, underwriting and claim processes. We do this using a range of technologies, encompassing Spring, Java, React, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Helm and various AWS services.

The Underwriting Engine team is a cross-functional team are consisting of 6 engineers and a product manager.

What you will be Doing

Leading a squad of 6 engineers, focused on delivering and improving the Underwriting Engine, ensuring high performance, scalability, and maintainability.

Mentoring engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, and helping team members grow in their roles.

Providing technical leadership, guiding system design decisions, and optimizing our Kubernetes-based architecture.

Leading and evolving the team's ways of working, ensuring effective collaboration, alignment, and continuous improvement in how work is planned, executed, and delivered.

Working with product and your teams product manager to ensure the most important things hit the roadmap. We’re in this for the long run and we need to prioritise new features against improving our technology and reducing the friction from support.

Driving a DevOps culture, ensuring smooth CI/CD processes and improving deployment efficiency.

Collaborating with product and business stakeholders, balancing technical constraints with business goals.

Participating in company-wide leadership initiatives, sharing insights, and contributing to technical strategy. Working as part of the tech leaders of UnderwriteMe to implement the engineering strategy and move the overall engineering function forwards.

Supporting recruitment and onboarding, ensuring we hire and integrate the best talent into the team.

What type of person fits the role:

A proactive leader who enjoys solving complex problems and improving team processes.

Someone who values collaboration and can work effectively across engineering, product, and business teams.

A mentor who is passionate about developing talent, enabling engineers to take ownership and grow.

A strong communicator who can explain technical concepts to different audiences and drive alignment.

A pragmatic problem solver who balances technical excellence with delivering business value.

A person who thrives in fast-paced, iterative environments, continuously seeking ways to improve development speed and feedback loops.

Technical Requirements

Must-Have:

Strong stakeholder management, with the ability to bridge the gap between business and engineering.

Strong problem-solving skills, capable of making informed trade-offs in complex technical decisions.

Ability to drive system design decisions, balancing scalability, performance, and maintainability.

Strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot, with a deep understanding of modern cloud-native, SaaS applications.

Experience leading teams in Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and Helm.

Expertise in AWS cloud services and designing scalable cloud-based systems.

Hands-on experience with CI/CD, DevOps practices, and improving release processes.

Proven ability to mentor engineers and foster a high-performing team culture.

Nice-to-Have:

Experience with frontend technologies (React, TypeScript) to understand full-stack considerations.

Familiarity with performance optimisation and cost reduction strategies in cloud environments.

About UnderwriteMe

UnderwriteMe is an Insurtech software business and subsidiary of Pacific Life Re (PL Re), a global life and pensions reinsurance firm. We have a vision to help everyone purchase protection insurance by using data and disruptive technology to transform our partners and markets in order to make their underwriting processes as quick and efficient as possible.

Our core products are:
• a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine which can be used to automate any structured data within the underwriting journey, and which is sold in the UK & Ireland, Asia-Pacific and North America
• the Protection Platform, an end-to-end quote and buy marketplace for Protection in the UK

Working for UnderwriteMe

Joining UnderwriteMe means being part of a technology company that is committed to bringing a fresh and dynamic approach to insurance. You’d be working with a team of highly technical experts made up of people with backgrounds in software, fintech, and insurance. Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step.

Of course, we take our work seriously and we know our team can operate under great pressure. We work hard and thrive on achievement, but we also know how to have fun and relax too. We regularly host a range of team building days to strengthen our team's connection with each other and reflect on their successes.

Providing employees with a healthy work-life balance is very important to our culture. We have a wide range of employee benefits and we host regular social activities and wellbeing initiatives. We are also committed to supporting our employee's involvement in their communities, by actively fundraising, hosting charity events, and overseeing volunteering opportunities.

Benefits (Only for Permanent and Fixed Term Employees)

As part of our commitment to accessibility for all, UnderwriteMe will, upon the request of the applicant, provide accommodation during the recruitment process to ensure equal access to applicants with disabilities. Please contact us about your needs, and we will consult with you to ensure suitable accommodation is provided.