Assistant Director, Software Engineering - Public Investments

Northwestern Mutual; Milwaukee (WI); On-site; USD 176,000 - 264,000; Full time

Job summary

Northwestern Mutual is seeking an Assistant Director, Software Engineering (People Leader) to own end-to-end technical quality and delivery across UI, services, and data platforms. You will lead engineers directly while partnering with Product Managers, Architects, and business stakeholders to deliver secure, scalable, and maintainable solutions.

You are both a technical authority and a people leader, setting direction, raising standards, and developing engineering talent.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software and data engineering experience.
• Experience leading engineers directly or readiness to step into people leadership.
• Strong experience building modern web applications with React.
• Strong experience designing REST APIs and data warehousing.
• Experience with security, observability, and enterprise-grade systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate technical direction for the Public Investments team.
• Translate product outcomes into technical designs and implementation plans.
• Lead solution design across front end, backend services, and data platforms.
• Drive decomposition and sequencing for applications, APIs, pipelines, and warehouse models.
• Establish engineering standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, and reliability.
• Own technical risk management including architecture and security risks.
• Ensure API and data integrations are documented and reusable.
• Guide data warehouse quality, transformations, and performance optimization.
• Support production stability through incident response and root-cause analysis.

Skills

Full-stack engineering

Data platform

People leadership

React

REST APIs

Data warehousing

Security & observability

Mentoring engineers

Tools

dbt

Snowflake

CI/CD

Node.js

Job description

About the Job

The Assistant Director, Software Engineering (People Leader) owns end-to-end technical quality and delivery execution across UI, services, and data platforms. This role is accountable for technical direction, delivery excellence, and people leadership for the Public Investments engineering teams. In this role, you will lead engineers directly while partnering closely with Product Managers, Architects, and business stakeholders to deliver secure, scalable, and supportable solutions aligned with team objectives. You are both a technical authority and a people leader—setting direction, raising standards, and developing engineering talent.

What You’ll Do

Core Responsibilities

• Define and communicate technical direction for the Public Investments team, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, security, and delivery standards.
• Translate product and business outcomes into pragmatic technical designs and implementation plans.
• Lead solution design across front end (React), backend services (Node.js, REST APIs), and data platforms (dbt, Snowflake) with clear interface contracts and data lineage.
• Drive technical decomposition and sequencing for initiatives spanning applications, APIs, pipelines, and warehouse models.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, observability, reliability, and operational readiness.
• Own technical risk management, including early identification of architecture, integration, performance, and security risks.
• Ensure API and data integrations are resilient, well-documented, and reusable across teams.
• Improve data reliability and trust by guiding data warehouse model quality, transformation design, and warehouse performance optimization.
• Support production stability by guiding incident response, root‑cause analysis, and preventive engineering improvements.

People Leadership & Team Development

Serve as direct people leader for engineers, responsible for coaching, growth, performance management, and career development. Build a strong engineering culture centered on ownership, quality, learning, and constructive feedback. Lead regular technical and delivery reviews, fostering a healthy review and mentorship culture. Develop team capability through coaching, pairing, and intentional skills development. Partner with Engineering Management on hiring, onboarding, and succession planning. Set clear expectations and accountability for technical excellence, delivery outcomes, and operational readiness.

Cross Functional Collaboration

Partner closely with Product Managers to balance delivery speed, quality, and long‑term maintainability. Coordinate cross‑team dependencies and release readiness for shared components, platforms, and data pipelines. Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture and other investment delivery teams’ Technical Leads to align standards, patterns, and roadmaps. Communicate effectively with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders, providing clarity under ambiguity.

What You’ll Bring to the Role

Required Qualifications

• Prior experience with one or more Public Investment Management systems (e.g., Aladdin Enterprise, Calypso, Bloomberg, Charles River, etc.).
• 8+ years of software and data engineering experience, with strong full‑stack and data platform expertise.
• Prior experience leading engineers directly (or demonstrated readiness to step into people leadership).
• Proven technical leadership across multiple teams or complex cross‑functional initiatives.
• Strong experience building modern web applications with React.
• Strong experience building backend services and designing REST APIs.
• Strong experience with data warehousing best practices.
• Experience with database performance tuning, cost‑aware design, and data governance controls.
• Experience designing secure, scalable, and observable systems in enterprise environments.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and elevate engineering maturity.
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in investment services domains.
• Experience modernizing legacy applications and data pipelines.
• Experience with platform migration programs and phased cutover strategies.
• Experience defining shared engineering standards across multiple teams.

Leadership Competencies

• Strong systems thinking and sound technical judgment under ambiguity.
• Ability to balance immediate delivery goals with long‑term architectural sustainability.
• Ability to influence without formal authority and create alignment across teams.
• Ownership mindset with high standards for reliability, security, and engineering quality.
• Act as a force multiplier by developing people, not just individual output.

Skills You Have

Accountability: Holds self and direct reports accountable for measurable, high‑quality, timely, and cost‑effective results, delivery, and execution. Determines objectives, sets priorities, delegates work to direct reports, and accepts responsibility for mistakes. Business Application: Utilizes both business acumen and technology expertise to translate business requirements/capabilities into technical solutions and applies technical knowledge of a product/platform/application to align it with a particular line of business (LOB). IT Strategy: Leverages knowledge of the short and long‑term IT strategy to identify, mitigate, and resolve immediate and future business challenges; uses critical thinking and knowledge of business demand to plan, prioritize, and execute high‑impact initiatives and programs that keep the end‑user experience at the forefront. Software Problem Solving: Conducts in‑depth analysis of technology needs, issues, and roadblocks within assigned scope, applies experience and expertise to apply best practices, explore the “art of possible”, and deliver blueprints for the most effective and efficient solutions. Detects and removes existing and potential errors in software code or a system that can cause it to behave unexpectedly or operate incorrectly. Leverages common software tools/debuggers and logical thinking for root‑causing issue. Talent Development & Planning: Develops direct reports’ skills based on organizational objectives, evaluates skill gaps, and manages succession planning to develop more capable direct reports, diverse, strong teams and better organizational performance in an equitable and inclusive manner.

Compensation

Pay Range – Start: $176,000.00; Pay Range – End: $264,000.00. Geographic Specific Pay Structure: Structure 110: $193,600.00 USD – $290,400.00 USD; Structure 115: $202,400.00 USD – $303,600.00 USD. Final salaries are based on factors including skills, experience, market, and location.

EEO Statement

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership, and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives. At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust and that our lives and our work matter.