Development & Operations (DevOps) Engineer II

Pekin Insurance; Pekin (IL); Hybrid; USD 82,000 - 111,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, Dental and Vision Insurance

Generous 401(k) with company match

PTO with paid holidays

Flexible/Hybrid work schedule

Paid volunteer program

Job summary

Pekin Insurance is seeking a Software Engineer to collaborate with product and platform teams to build interactive applications and optimize data workflows. You will design, code, test, and deploy within an Agile environment, driving automation, deployment, and maintenance across environments.

You will work with Analysts, Product Owners, and Managers to translate requirements into scalable features, contribute to release planning, and ensure secure, reliable software delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in IT/CS or related field.
• Typically 2-5 years of relevant experience.
• Experience with Agile environments is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Participate in Agile ceremonies and deliver product increments.
• Translate business needs into features and user stories.
• Develop, test, and deploy software with a focus on quality.
• Automate deployment and improve release processes.
• Collaborate across development, QA, and platform teams.

Skills

Agile methodologies

Cloud & On-Prem environments

Collaboration

Web development basics

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT Engineering / CS / related field

Equivalent experience

Tools

GitHub Actions

Bitbucket

TeamCity

Nexus

Jira

ServiceNow

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Looking for more than just a job? You’ve found it. At Pekin Insurance, you’re not a number—you’re part of something bigger. For over 100 years, we’ve built a community where people are valued, supported, and empowered to grow. Here, you’ll find a workplace where collaboration is real, ideas are welcome, and the work you do truly matters. We’re proud to help people through life’s toughest moments—and it’s our people who make that possible. From day one, you’ll be encouraged to bring your whole self to work, take on meaningful challenges, and grow in ways that matter to you.

Position Overview

The Software Engineer is responsible for working collaboratively with product and platform teams to create and support rich, interactive applications that help end users manage their data and processes. Software Engineer designs, codes, tests, implements, scales and (in some cases) supports application software and systems, usually as part of an Agile Development Team. Software Engineer works closely with Analysts, Product Owners, and Product Managers to understand business requirements and translate these into product or platform features, user stories, and/or components. Software Engineer drives the analysis and physical design of technical solutions related to a product or platform and is expected to effectively write new programs as well as support upgrades, maintenance or issue resolution for existing applications and systems. The Software Engineer uses DevOps and Agile processes to deliver desired functionality quickly and effectively, while iterating to continue development. Software Engineer owns all aspects of development, from user experience (UX) planning to deployment. The Software Engineer contributes to the development of the team backlog and architectural runway, management of work in process (WIP) levels, and support of engineering aspects of program and solution Kanban. Software Engineer may also participate in program increment planning, pre- and- post planning, system, and solution demos, and inspect and adapt events. In addition to software development responsibilities, the Software Engineer II may support release engineering, deployment automation, and software delivery activities. This role works closely with development, QA, infrastructure, and platform teams to improve deployment processes, support application releases, automate repetitive tasks, and help ensure reliable software delivery across environments.

Essential Job Functions

• Participates and plays an active role in all Agile Team activities and is accountable for regularly producing product increments that effectively contribute to solution features and/or components
• Works closely with product teams to define the requirements and associated features and user stories of the application
• Understands design elements and visually customizes components to fit the application
• Performs physical design
• Consistently promotes reuse, flexibility, and efficiency in solution design
• Applies advanced techniques such as design thinking or journey mapping to improve user experience (UX)
• Develops/builds, installs, initially configures, and tests solutions
• Produces high-quality production-ready software in small increments
• Maintains code integrity and organization
• Contributes to end-to-end delivery workflows, even those outside his or her area of expertise or explicit responsibility
• Evaluates existing applications and platforms and provides recommendations for improving application performance by conducting gap analysis, identifying feasible alternative solutions, and assisting in the scope of modifications
• Constructively works with architecture/integration experts to improve own work and knowledge
• Guides team to adhere to security requirements and use appropriate security frameworks and tools
• Proactively troubleshoots, diagnoses, documents, and resolves escalated support problems
• Applies operation break fixes and other proactive maintenance activities until permanent solutions can be implemented
• Supports innovative efforts by driving creativity, acting with agility, and thinking outside current boundaries
• Evaluates services provided by vendors and may recommend changes
• Uses technology to implement automation and orchestration
• Supports software release activities across development, testing, user acceptance, and production environments.
• Assists with deployment planning, execution, validation and troubleshooting.
• Develops and maintains CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation solutions.
• Identifies opportunities to reduce manual processes through automation and tooling.
• Monitors release results and assist in resolving deployment-related issues.
• Maintains deployment documentation, procedures, and technical runbooks.
• Performs other duties as assigned

Required

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in IT Engineering, Computer Science, Business Management, Mathematics, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or Information Sciences preferred, or equivalent experience
• Typically requires 2-5 years of experience in the desired field or may have intermediate level technical or business work experience

Preferred

• Experience in an agile environment strongly preferred
• Relevant certification is strongly preferred
• Experience with software deployment, release management, or DevOps practices
• Experience working with CI/CD tools and automated deployment pipelines.
• Experience supporting enterprise applications within Agile delivery environments.
• Guidewire experience preferred.

Certifications & Licenses

N/A

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Demonstrated ability to:

• Work across multiple environments including cloud and on-premises, and multiple operating systems
• Use modern web development technologies and techniques (e.g., HTML5, CSS, Java Script, etc.)
• Perform design (e.g., prototype, user interface (UI) design, user experience (UX) design, interaction design)
• Develop solutions for both mobile and desktop
• Collaborate with both business and IT stakeholders and develop constructive working relationships with team and non-team members
• Use judgment to form conclusions that may challenge conventional wisdom
• Apply original thinking to produce new ideas and innovate
• Troubleshoot deployment and environment-related issues.
• Collaborate with development, QA, platform, and infrastructure teams to support software releases.
• Automate repetitive operational and deployment tasks.
• Support multiple concurrent releases and deployment activities.

Demonstrated Understanding Of

• How components throughout the technology “stack” interact
• Front and back-end programming languages/tools

Demonstrated Knowledge Of

• Continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD), Agile, and automated deployment best practices
• Databases and database interaction
• Code versioning tools
• Use cases for architectural components and how to apply them
• CI/CD pipeline implementation and maintenance.
• Software deployment and release management practices.
• Source control, build automation, and deployment automation tools.
• Change management and software promotion processes.
• Environment management concepts and deployment workflows.
• Experience with tools such as GitHub Actions, Bitbucket, TeamCity, Nexus, Jira, ServiceNow, Digital.AI (Release) or similar software delivery and deployment platforms.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship now or in the future.

Pay Range

$82,000.00 - $111,000.00 annually

This range is based on the expected level of experience and skills for this position. Final compensation will depend on individual.

Benefits

• Health, Dental and Vision Insurance
• Generous 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off (PTO) with Paid Holidays
• Flexible/Hybrid Work Schedule
• Paid Volunteer Program