AI Principal, Strategy & Transformation

MetLife; Cary (NC); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

401(k) with employer matching

Parental leave

Job summary

MetLife seeks a Principal on the Delivery Strategy & Transformation team to shape the AI-first operating model across Global Technology. You will own end-to-end delivery with enterprise breadth and drive adoption with CIO organizations and Enterprise Architecture.

In this hybrid role, you will set strategy, governance, and measurement for AI-enabled delivery, deliver concrete results, and ensure traceability and risk controls in a regulated environment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with agentic AI frameworks in enterprise delivery.
• 10+ years in enterprise technology delivery, transformation, operating-model design, or enterprise architecture.
• Track record of shaping how large organizations deliver products and software with executive-level communication.
• Deep knowledge of flow-based delivery systems and modern Agile methods (SAFe, Lean, Kanban).
• Experience designing governance for AI-assisted delivery in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Work AI-first in your own practice, setting a reference for others.
• Own end-to-end agenda for assigned enterprise initiatives to adoption.
• Translate undefined scope into a defined path with named owners and sequencing.
• Present recommendations to GT senior leaders with clear tradeoffs.
• Partner with Enterprise DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Architecture to operationalize AI-enabled delivery.

Skills

Agentic AI

Executive communication

Delivery leadership

AI-first strategy

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Microsoft Azure AI

Job description

Role Value Proposition

As a Principal on MetLife’s Delivery Strategy & Transformation (DST) team, you will set the direction for how Global Technology delivers products and software as it moves to an AI-First Operating Model. This is DST’s most senior individual-contributor role: enterprise breadth, accountability that runs end to end, and the latitude to define the approach with the standing to drive it through GT senior leadership. Assignments are agreed with the AVP and owned through to adopted practice.

The Opportunity

Role Value Proposition

As a Principal on MetLife’s Delivery Strategy & Transformation (DST) team, you will set the direction for how Global Technology delivers products and software as it moves to an AI-First Operating Model. This is DST’s most senior individual-contributor role: enterprise breadth, accountability that runs end to end, and the latitude to define the approach with the standing to drive it through GT senior leadership. Assignments are agreed with the AVP and owned through to adopted practice.

About the team:

DST is an individual-contributor team inside MetLife Global Technology, working directly with CIO organizations, Enterprise DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Enterprise Architecture. GitHub Enterprise and the agentic SDLC toolchain are being made productive now, and the AI-First Operating Model is being designed and proven in live delivery — this role shapes it rather than inherits it.

• What is changing: Global Technology is moving to an AI-first delivery model — agents performing delivery work alongside people, specifications and curated context replacing tribal knowledge, and review, traceability, and control points rebuilt around output that people and agents produce together.
• Why this role matters: the work of this team will redefine how teams plan, build, review, govern, and deliver technology in an AI-first environment — the roles people hold, the artifacts they produce, the evidence they leave behind, and the measures that show delivery actually improved. As DST’s most senior individual contributor, you set the direction of that change and carry it through to adopted practice across CIO organizations.

Key Responsibilities

• Work AI-first in your own practice — accelerating research, analysis, artifact production, and prototyping so one person covers ground that would otherwise require a team. As DST’s most senior individual contributor, your practice is the reference others are pointed to.
• Own the end-to-end agenda for assigned enterprise initiatives — target-state design, roadmap, success measures, governance, readiness, and adoption support — and carry them through with CIO organizations and delivery leaders. Accountability ends at measurable adoption, not at a recommendation.
• Take on the problems no single CIO organization can solve — undefined scope, contested ownership, several organizations that must change together — and convert them into a defined path with named owners, sequencing, and decision points.
• Put recommendations in front of GT senior leaders that move decisions — target-state options with cost, risk, capacity, and sequencing tradeoffs made explicit — and represent DST where delivery, architecture, risk, and platform priorities get reconciled.
• Partner with Enterprise DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and Enterprise Architecture to make the GitHub Enterprise and agentic SDLC platform productive in practice — defining the workflow, role, and governance changes teams must make, and clearing the operating-model blockers platform capability alone cannot fix.
• Partner with CIO organizations, enterprise delivery leaders, portfolio organizations, and advisory teams to validate and improve enterprise operating models through real-world application — establishing feedback mechanisms that evaluate effectiveness, surface adoption insight, and determine where standards, governance, and guidance need adjustment.
• Shape the controls, guardrails, and evidence model for AI-assisted and agent-executed delivery with Risk, Audit, Legal, and Enterprise DevSecOps, so AI-generated work is traceable, reviewable, and defensible in a regulated environment.
• Lead stakeholder engagement, readiness, enablement, communications, and transition activities for DST-owned products, services, standards, and operating model changes, including the repeatable guidance and messaging leaders and teams work from. Partner with S&P and other stakeholders on broader enterprise change efforts.
• Advance enterprise delivery measurement — flow, engineering-effectiveness, and AI-specific indicators — and connect it to demonstrable business value rather than activity reporting.

Required Qualifications

• Hands‑on experience with agentic AI frameworks in enterprise delivery — enough direct experience building, deploying, or governing agent-based workflows to judge where agents belong, what they can be trusted to do unsupervised, and how their use is governed at portfolio scale. Familiarity with AI assistants alone is not sufficient.
• 10+ years in enterprise technology delivery, transformation, operating-model design, or enterprise architecture.
• A track record of shaping how large organizations deliver products and software — not coaching individual teams — including the adoption, readiness, and stakeholder work that makes a change stick. Proven ability to define the path under ambiguity and advise senior leaders. Executive‑grade written and verbal communication.
• Deep working knowledge of flow‑based delivery systems and modern Agile ways of working — Scaled Agile (SAFe) or comparable frameworks, the product operating model, Lean and Kanban — with command of the end‑to‑end PDLC and SDLC as a single flow, and the judgment to determine what carries forward into an AI‑first model.
• Experience designing governance and controls for AI‑assisted delivery in a regulated environment — provenance and auditability, validation and human‑accountability checkpoints, IP and licensing exposure, and the evidence risk and audit partners require.

Preferred Qualifications

• Fluency in delivery measurement — flow metrics and engineering‑effectiveness frameworks such as DORA, SPACE, or DX Core 4 — tied to value realization rather than activity reporting.
• Experience sponsoring enterprise AI adoption programs — setting the adoption strategy, securing funding and executive sponsorship, and holding the measurement case for continued investment.
• Lean portfolio management and investment governance, strategic platform and vendor partnerships, and financial services or insurance experience.
• Experience working in a large enterprise organization of 1,000+ technologists and in regulated environments.
• Relevant certifications — SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, PMI‑ACP, Prosci or equivalent, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Azure AI, or comparable — and a bachelor’s degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Location Expectation

This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office.

Salary

The expected salary range for this position is $150,000 - $190,000. This role may also be eligible for annual short-term incentive compensation. All incentives and benefits are subject to the applicable plan terms.

Benefits We Offer

Our U.S. benefits address holistic well‑being with programs for physical and mental health, financial wellness, and support for families. We offer a comprehensive health plan that includes medical/prescription drug and vision, dental insurance, and no‑cost short‑and long‑term disability. We also provide company‑paid life insurance and legal services, a retirement pension funded entirely by MetLife and 401(k) with employer matching, group discounts on voluntary insurance products including auto and home, pet, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and accident insurance, as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and digital mental health programs, parental leave, paid time off, paid holidays, volunteer time off, tuition assistance and much more! For more information regarding MetLife’s U.S. benefits, please click here.

About MetLife

Recognized on Fortune magazine's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", Fortune World’s 25 Best Workplaces™, as well as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®, MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world’s leading financial services companies; providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. With operations in more than 40 markets, we hold leading positions in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

As part of our New Frontier strategy, MetLife is building an AI-enabled, people‑centered future. We’re looking for people who bring curiosity, adaptability, and a