Senior Manager - AI Engineering

Guidewire Software Solutions India Private Limited; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Guidewire Software Solutions India Private Limited in Bengaluru, India seeks an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the Product Development pod within our Professional Services AI Engineering team. This hands-on leadership role combines people management and architect-level technical authority over backend architecture, system design, and platform scaling.

You will build and retain a high-performing team, own architectural decisions for productized AI features, and drive CI/CD,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• 3+ years leading engineering teams of 5+ direct reports.
• Hands-on backend design and distributed systems experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead product development pod within Professional Services AI Engineering.
• Own hiring, performance, and career development.
• Set standards for code quality, reviews, and release readiness.
• Collaborate with AI and Platform Architects for architecture and CI/CD.
• Translate PS priorities into project commitments and roadmaps.

Skills

Java

Python

Distributed systems

CI/CD

Observability

Team leadership

AI/LLM integration

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/SE

Tools

RabbitMQ

Kafka

AWS

Container orchestration

Job description

Senior Manager – AI Engineering Summary

Guidewire is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the Product Development pod within our Professional Services AI Engineering team in Bangalore. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role: you will own both people management for our growing dev pod (Product Engineers, UI/UX, QA, SecOps) and the dev‑side technical direction for our AI productization work. Unlike a pure manager role, you will hold Architect‑equivalent technical authority over backend architecture, system design, and platform‑scaling decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership: Build, grow, and retain a high‑performing dev pod of Senior and Consultant Product Engineers, a UI/UX Systems Developer, the QA Dev Architect, and a SecOps Engineer. Own hiring, performance, career development, and team operations.
• Dev‑Side Architecture: Hold Architect‑level authority for product‑side technical decisions – backend architecture, deterministic business logic, database access patterns, and system scaling choices (e.g., RabbitMQ‑backed queues, async processing patterns).
• Delivery Oversight: Set the bar for code quality, review standards, and release readiness across all Strike Teams. Day‑to‑day per-project technical calls are delegated to the SR Product Engineers leading each team; you set the standards they execute against.
• Cross‑Pod Coordination: Pair with the AI Architect to ensure deterministic and non‑deterministic components compose cleanly. Work with the Platform Architect on shared CI/CD, infrastructure, and observability requirements.
• Stakeholder Alignment: Translate priorities from PS leadership into project commitments, capacity plans, and quarterly roadmaps. Represent the dev pod in regional AI governance forums.
• Hiring & Performance: Drive the hiring pipeline for the open dev‑side positions, calibrate leveling, and own performance and growth conversations across your direct reports.

KPIs & Success Metrics

• Product‑side workstreams ship on schedule and meet the release‑readiness bar across all Strike Teams.
• Code quality and review standards upheld (review coverage, defect escape rate, rework).
• Reliability and scalability targets met for product‑side architecture (latency, throughput, uptime).
• Team health and growth: retention, performance calibration, and engineers progressing P2→P3.
• Open dev‑side positions filled to plan with calibrated leveling.

Key Skills & Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 10+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years managing engineering teams of 5+ direct reports.
• Technical Proficiency:
  • Strong backend development background (Java, Python, or equivalent) with deep experience in system design and distributed systems.
  • Hands‑on experience with database access patterns, message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka), and horizontal scaling.
  • Working understanding of how AI/LLM features get integrated into production systems. You own the architectural decisions where AI and deterministic components meet, partnering with AI specialists on deeper modeling work and knowing when to bring them in.
  • Strong CI/CD and engineering hygiene background (Git workflows, automated testing, observability).
• People Excellence: Track record of building inclusive, high‑trust engineering teams, managing performance, and growing engineers from mid‑level into senior roles.
• Domain Context: Experience delivering complex enterprise software, ideally in a SaaS or platform productization context.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Guidewire Knowledge: Prior experience with Guidewire InsuranceSuite or Guidewire Cloud is a significant plus.
• AI Productization: Experience leading teams that ship LLM‑powered or AI‑assisted features into production.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Familiarity with AWS, container orchestration, and infrastructure‑as‑code.
• PS Delivery: Background in Professional Services or consulting delivery organizations.

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.

Equal Opportunity Statement

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.

Experience Level Senior Level