Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Cloud Platform

Guidewire; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Guidewire seeks a Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Platform to lead a high-performing Platform Engineering POD. You will guide architectural decisions, scale cloud services, and partner with product and security teams to ensure reliability and developer experience across Guidewire’s SaaS platform.

You will apply data-driven leadership, mentor multi-disciplinary engineers, and drive best practices for scalable, secure, and observable systems on AWS.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software development experience with SaaS/PaaS in a product company.
• Significant experience in people management (6–8+ years).
• Led an entire Platform Engineering POD or cross-functional platform team responsible for reliability, scalability, and developer experience.
• Hands-on coding in Java/Go/Python with ability to review designs and trade-offs.
• Deep understanding of SaaS architectures on public cloud (AWS), multi-tenant, highly available and secure.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow multiple Platform Engineering teams with clear direction and career development.
• Set performance expectations and drive a high-performing, inclusive team culture.
• Collaborate with Staff/Principal Engineers on architecture and technical direction for platform services.
• Own end-to-end delivery for Platform teams from planning to rollout and improvement.
• Promote engineering best practices (API-first design, TDD, BDD, GitOps, observability).
• Align platform roadmaps with product, security, and business needs.
• Identify risks, remove blockers, and ensure SLAs/SLOs and quality targets are met.
• Model Guidewire’s culture of curiosity, continuous improvement, and responsible AI use.

Skills

People management

Platform engineering leadership

Cloud architecture (AWS)

Java

Go

Python

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

OpenShift

GitOps

CI/CD

Job description

Summary Guidewire provides outstanding software for the second-largest financial services industry in the world: insurance. We deliver the core applications that Property and Casualty (P/C) insurers use to build their products, sell policies, settle claims, and bill their customers. Through Guidewire Cloud, our SaaS platform, we enable customers to rapidly innovate, scale securely, and drive measurable value. Our Application Platform and underlying cloud infrastructure help internal teams and customers build modern insurance applications, boosting developer productivity, enabling a rich partner ecosystem, and leveraging the latest cloud technologies.

As a Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Platform, you will be a key leader within the Application Platform organization, accountable for building and leading a high-performing Platform Engineering POD. You will focus on people leadership and organizational excellence while guiding technical direction across SaaS and platform services. Partnering closely with senior engineers and product leaders, you will drive delivery of resilient, scalable cloud platform capabilities (preferably on AWS) that underpin a complex suite of products generating over $1B in annual revenue and serving 400+ enterprises worldwide. Your leadership will be critical to ensuring our platform is reliable, secure, and a great experience for both developers and customers.

Job Description

What you'll do

• Lead and grow multiple Platform Engineering teams, providing clear direction, coaching, and career development for a team of engineers.
• Set expectations, give regular feedback, and manage performance to build a high-performing, inclusive, and accountable team.
• Partner with Staff/Principal Engineers to guide technical and architectural decisions for platform services, focusing on scalability, reliability, and security rather than day-to-day coding.
• Own end-to-end delivery for the Platform teams - from planning and prioritization through execution, rollout, and ongoing improvement.
• Drive adoption of engineering best practices (API-first design, TDD, BDD, GitOps, observability) across your teams.
• Collaborate closely with Product Management, Security, and other engineering leaders to align platform roadmaps with business and customer needs.
• Proactively identify risks, remove blockers, and ensure your POD consistently meets agreed SLAs/SLOs and quality standards.
• Role-model Guidewire's culture of curiosity, continuous improvement, and responsible use of AI, encouraging your team to leverage AI and automation to improve productivity and outcomes.

What you'll bring

• Demonstrated ability to embrace AI and apply it to your role, using data-driven insights to drive innovation, productivity, and continuous improvement.
• 15+ years of software development experience, with a strong background in building SaaS and/or PaaS products at a product company.
• Significant experience in people management (typically 6-8+ years), including hiring, performance management, coaching, and career development of software engineers.
• Proven experience leading an entire Platform Engineering POD or equivalent cross-functional platform team, accountable for reliability, scalability, and developer experience.
• Earlier-career hands-on programming experience in JavaGo/Python, and still comfortable reviewing code, discussing design trade-offs, and challenging technical proposals.
• Deep understanding of SaaS architectures on public cloud (preferably AWS), including multi-tenant, highly available, and secure systems.
• Strong experience with CI/CD and platform tooling, such as Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, OpenShift, and modern Git-based pipelines.
• Solid understanding of system design and distributed systems, including resilience, observability, and cost-efficiency considerations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence and build trust with engineers, peers, and senior stakeholders.
• A calm, pragmatic leadership style under pressure, with a strong bias for action and continuous improvement.

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.

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.

Disability Accommodations

Guidewire is proud to be a disability inclusive employer. We are committed to providing individualized accommodations and support to candidates for any part of our hiring process. If you think you may need disability-related accommodations, please email EmployAbility at [e-mail], our disability partner, or schedule a call with an EmployAbility expert (calendar booking slot) for a confidential conversation.

We’re an extraordinary blend of hungry self-starters, intrepid explorers, brainy experts, and loyal allies. Combine all of this, and we make a glorious success story, loaded with down-to-earth, helpful, and passionate people, all on the journey of cloud innovation and best in class technology. Guidewire's an adventure—and it's yours for the taking. At Guidewire, we are utterly committed to customer success. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service to the P&C Insurance industry. And with the largest R&D team, services team, and partner ecosystem in the industry, we continually evolve and innovate to meet our customers’ needs. We put our values of Integrity, Rationality, and Collegiality first, harboring a culture of honesty and openness that our people never want to lose. And we each bring a little quirkiness—and a little genius—to the table. As the landscape of our industry continues to shift, we respond with flexibility and skill. We’re braving uncharted territory, pushing past the conventional with our products, partners, and people.