Senior Software Engineer

Manulife/John Hancock; Kuala Lumpur; Hybrid; MYR 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Manulife/John Hancock is seeking a Solution Design and Architecture Lead to drive end-to-end design for digital applications, APIs, and platform enhancements. You will mentor a small engineering team, coordinate multiple workstreams, and ensure security, governance, and regulatory compliance across the solution lifecycle.

The role requires strong experience in full-stack development, enterprise architecture, and collaboration with product owners, analysts, and security teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, IT, Information Systems, or related field.
• 5-8 years of software development across frontend, backend, integration, and databases.
• Experience in solution design, architecture, and technical documentation.
• Proven experience leading 3–5 engineers in IT project delivery.
• Experience delivering enterprise applications using Agile or iterative methods.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end solution design for digital apps, integrations, APIs, and platform enhancements.
• Mentor 3–5 software engineers through delivery lifecycle.
• Oversee end-to-end IT project delivery, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
• Develop secure, scalable, maintainable architectures and data models.
• Champion AI-assisted development with governance and secure coding practices.
• Support DevOps, security, and governance across SDLC and release processes.

Skills

Solution design

Team leadership

Architecture governance

IT project delivery

Full-stack engineering

AI-assisted development

DevOps & security

Technical coaching

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Software Engineering

Tools

Angular

React

TypeScript

Java

Spring Boot

Job description

Position Responsibilities

Solution Design and Architecture Lead end-to-end solution design for digital applications, integrations, APIs, and platform enhancements. Translate business and functional requirements into scalable, secure, maintainable, and cost-effective technical solutions. Develop and maintain solution architecture documents, system context and integration flows, API specifications, data models, and detailed technical designs. Evaluate technical options, identify trade-offs, and recommend solution approaches aligned with enterprise standards and business outcomes. Ensure solutions comply with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, data protection, regulatory, resilience, and technology governance requirements. Facilitate technical design reviews and architecture walkthroughs with relevant stakeholders.

Technical Leadership and Team Guidance

Lead, guide, and mentor a team of 3-5 software engineers throughout the project delivery lifecycle. Provide technical direction, coaching, development support, and timely resolution of engineering blockers. Allocate technical work based on delivery priorities, team capacity, skills, and project dependencies. Conduct peer reviews, code reviews, design reviews, and quality checks to maintain engineering standards. Promote accountability, collaboration, knowledge sharing, continuous learning, and engineering discipline. Develop team capability through mentoring, technical workshops, reusable engineering assets, and succession planning.

IT Project Delivery Lead

Lead technical delivery from requirements analysis and solution design through development, testing, deployment, and production stabilization. Plan and coordinate engineering activities to meet agreed scope, schedule, quality, security, and business objectives. Manage multiple projects, enhancements, defects, and technical workstreams while maintaining delivery transparency. Identify and proactively manage technical risks, dependencies, resource constraints, delivery issues, and technical debt. Collaborate with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Architects, Quality Engineers, Infrastructure, Security, Operations, vendors, and business stakeholders. Provide clear progress updates, technical recommendations, risk assessments, and escalation support to project and technology leadership. Support release planning, implementation, rollback readiness, post-release validation, and production stabilization.

Full-Stack Software Engineering

Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain secure enterprise web applications across front-end and back-end components. Build responsive user interfaces using Angular, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, or comparable technologies. Develop backend services, RESTful APIs, integrations, and business logic using Java, Spring Boot, or equivalent technologies. Design and optimize databases, queries, data models, and integration patterns. Develop reusable components and services that improve maintainability, consistency, performance, and delivery speed. Troubleshoot complex application, integration, performance, and production issues and lead root-cause analysis.

AI-Assisted Development and Testing

Champion the responsible use of approved AI-powered tools, including GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Copilot, or equivalent enterprise platforms to improve engineering productivity and software quality. Apply AI assistance to solution exploration, coding, refactoring, documentation, test generation, troubleshooting, and defect analysis. Establish practical team guidance for reviewing, testing, and validating AI-generated outputs before implementation. Ensure AI-assisted engineering complies with secure coding, data protection, intellectual property, privacy, and Responsible AI requirements. Drive AI-assisted and automated testing practices covering unit, integration, API, regression, and selected end-to-end scenarios. Improve test coverage and reusable test assets through tools such as Katalon, Selenium, Playwright, Postman, or equivalent frameworks.

DevOps, Security, and Engineering Governance

Support CI/CD pipeline implementation, automated quality gates, and reliable deployment practices. Apply secure coding, DevSecOps, vulnerability management, logging, monitoring, and operational readiness practices. Ensure adherence to SDLC, code review, testing, release management, change management, audit, and compliance controls. Maintain technical documentation, deployment guides, support runbooks, and knowledge-transfer materials. Drive continuous improvement in engineering processes, platform reliability, development efficiency, and technical debt management.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, or a related discipline. Minimum 5-8 years of relevant software development experience across front-end, back-end, integration, and database technologies. Proven experience in solution design, system architecture, technical documentation, and evaluation of solution options. Demonstrated experience leading and guiding 3-5 team members in IT project delivery. Experience delivering enterprise applications using Agile or iterative delivery methods. Experience coordinating technical delivery across business, engineering, quality, security, infrastructure, and operational stakeholders. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical topics to non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

Preferably has prior working experience in the life insurance or financial services industry, with an understanding of relevant business processes, products, and regulatory considerations. Experience delivering cloud-native applications or modernization initiatives. Exposure to enterprise architecture, security architecture, and solution governance practices. Understanding of cybersecurity, risk, audit, privacy, data protection, and regulatory requirements. Experience implementing DevSecOps, automated quality gates, platform engineering, or observability practices. Experience supporting vendor delivery, cross-functional teams, or geographically distributed stakeholders. Knowledge of Responsible AI governance and practical application of AI within software engineering.

When you join our team

We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want. We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words. As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html. Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law. It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact [e-mail].

Working Arrangement

Hybrid We’re Manulife. And we’re on a mission to make decisions easier and lives better. Better is what drives us. It’s what inspires us to find new ways to support customers and colleagues in living longer and healthier lives. It’s the reason we’re dedicated to investing in digital innovation and industry-leading AI, and accelerating a sustainable and economically inclusive future. Joining us means you’ll be empowered to learn and grow your career. We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words. And as part of our global team, you’ll help shape the future you want to see - and discover that better can take you anywhere you want to go. We’re proud of our accomplishments and recognition. Recent awards include: 2026 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award Winner Manulife Named one of Forbes World’s Best Employers 2025 Financial Times World’s Best Employers Asia-Pacific 2026 We’ve been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers 2026 #1 Life Insurer for AI Maturity by Evident 2026