Overview
Good things are happening at Berkshire Hathaway GUARD Insurance Companies -an A+ (Superior) rated, nationwide Property & Casualty insurer backed by Berkshire Hathaway. With supportive leadership, collaborative teams, and opportunities to grow, GUARD is a place where people build meaningful, long-term careers.
Good Things You Can Count On
- Hybrid schedule: 2 days remote / 3 in-office
- Competitive pay + generous PTO
- Medical, dental & vision starting day one
- 401(k), tuition reimbursement & longevity bonuses
Responsibilities
The AVP of Technology Solutions provides enterprise leadership for technology solutions, platform strategy, and digital transformation initiatives. The role defines target-state capabilities, establishes solution standards, and leads cross-functional efforts to modernize the technology environment while balancing business, customer, operational, security, and technology objectives. Through governance, influence, and strategic decision-making, the AVP drives scalable, long-term technology outcomes.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Decision Rights & Accountability
- Provide strategic direction and recommendations for enterprise solutions, balancing business, customer, operational, security, and technology considerations.
- Approve solution designs, standards, technology selections, and exceptions within established governance and investment parameters.
- Make and own recommendations regarding build, buy, partner, reuse, modernization, and migration strategies.
- Escalate decisions only when risk, investment, regulatory, or architecture thresholds are exceeded.
- Ensure technical recommendations are sound, sustainable, and aligned with enterprise objectives.
Core Accountabilities
- Lead modernization initiatives that advance scalable, cloud-aligned, service-based technology capabilities.
- Design integrated end-to-end solutions across customer experiences, applications, data, security, and platforms.
- Enable partner, agent, and vendor ecosystems through scalable and integration-ready solutions.
- Establish API-first and event-driven architecture practices that promote reuse, governance, and interoperability.
- Define foundational standards for AI-enabled and agentic solutions, including governance, oversight, and security.
- Ensure modernization efforts improve customer, partner, agent, and employee experiences through research and validation.
Technology Solution Design & Modernization
- Define and approve target-state solution architectures across applications, data, integration, security, and platforms.
- Develop modernization roadmaps that support incremental delivery, business continuity, and reduced technical debt.
- Evaluate and recommend technology platforms, tools, and architectures based on strategic and operational value.
- Approve prototypes, reference architectures, and implementation guidance to accelerate delivery.
- Partner with architecture leaders to align solutions with enterprise technology strategy.
API, Integration & Ecosystem Architecture
- Establish API-first, event-driven, and integration standards that support business and partner needs.
- Define governance for APIs, integrations, security, observability, and lifecycle management.
- Reduce system complexity through reusable integration patterns and scalable partner connectivity.
- Ensure integrations meet security, compliance, resilience, and operational requirements.
Product, Experience & Customer Validation
- Lead discovery, journey mapping, and solution design across customer, partner, agent, and employee experiences.
- Translate insights into technology requirements, modernization priorities, and solution strategies.
- Validate major initiatives through stakeholder engagement, user feedback, and measurable outcomes.
- Balance usability, accessibility, operational efficiency, risk, and long-term platform objectives.
Hands-On Prototyping & AI-Assisted Delivery
- Develop and evaluate prototypes to validate concepts, reduce uncertainty, and accelerate decision-making.
- Apply technical expertise to assess architecture, development approaches, and implementation options.
- Establish responsible AI-assisted delivery practices, including governance, quality controls, and review processes.
- Determine when additional engineering, security, legal, compliance, or business review is required.
Agentic & Applied AI Solutions
- Define strategy and solution direction for AI-enabled and agentic experiences.
- Establish governance for agent actions, orchestration, authorization, monitoring, and auditability.
- Ensure AI solutions communicate limitations, confidence levels, and escalation paths appropriately.
- Balance innovation and business value with risk, compliance, and operational readiness.
Enterprise Standards & Governance
- Establish and maintain enterprise standards for solutions, APIs, integrations, customer experiences, and AI interactions.
- Serve as a senior authority for architecture and design governance, resolving exceptions and competing priorities.
- Define governance processes for adoption, versioning, technical debt management, and retirement of standards.
- Embed security, privacy, resilience, accessibility, and compliance into solution frameworks.
Executive Leadership & Influence
- Present strategic recommendations and technology investment proposals to executive leadership.
- Align stakeholders across business, product, architecture, engineering, security, and operations functions.
- Drive decisions and clarity in complex, high-impact initiatives.
- Influence and mentor cross-functional
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
- 15+ years of progressive experience leading digital products, enterprise solutions, technology platforms, or modernization initiatives.
- Demonstrated success making and owning high-impact technology decisions with enterprise-wide business, customer, operational, and technology implications.
- Experience leading solution design, technology strategy, platform modernization, product architecture, or user experience initiatives.
- Proven ability to develop and execute modernization strategies while supporting ongoing business operations.
- Experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives involving multiple business areas, products, or technology domains.
- Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills with the ability to build alignment without direct authority.