Director, Solution Development & AI-Driven IT Leadership

Horace Mann; United States; Híbrido; USD 105 000 - 148 000; Tempo integral

Resumo da oferta

Horace Mann is seeking an experienced Director Solution Development to lead the software engineering and support team within IT. This leader will drive stability, efficiency, and continuous improvement of digital platforms, balancing business needs with technical excellence.

The role demands a strong technical background, strategic decision-making, and the ability to communicate trade-offs to stakeholders. You will champion the team's use of agentic AI tools to boost productivity and cultivate a

Qualificações

• 6+ years of IT leadership managing digital operations, technical support, and system enhancements.
• Proven track record of making strategic prioritization decisions that drive business value.
• Strong background in technical support, bug resolution, and application enhancement.
• Experience implementing agentic AI development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex) and driving team-wide adoption in engineering workflows.
• Fluency in modern ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira, Azure DevOps) and IT service management best practices.

Responsabilidades

• Evaluate and prioritize incoming requests based on business impact, urgency, and technical feasibility.
• Lead, mentor, and empower a high-performing team responsible for support, defect resolution, and small system enhancements.
• Establish and refine processes for managing digital defects, incidents, and enhancement requests.
• Bridge between technology teams and business stakeholders, ensuring priorities and constraints are understood.

Conhecimentos

Strategic leadership

Prioritization decisions

Stakeholder communication

Agentic AI adoption

Technical oversight

Formação académica

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration

Ferramentas

ServiceNow

Jira

Azure DevOps

Claude Code

Codex

Descrição da oferta de emprego

Horace Mann is seeking an experienced and strategic Director Solution Developmentto lead the software engineering and support team within IT.

This leader will play a pivotal role in ensuring the stability, efficiency, and continuous improvement of digital platforms, balancing business priorities while driving technical excellence. The ideal candidate will possess a strong technical background, deep understanding of business needs, and exceptional decision-making skills to evaluate and prioritize requests that maximize business value. The candidate will lead the team's adoption of agentic AI-assisted development to enhance productivity and creativity.

This role requires someone who is highly organized, confident in making firm prioritization decisions, and skilled in communicating trade-offs to stakeholders. The director must be able to navigate competing demands, align technology work with strategic goals, and create a structured approach to digital system support and incremental enhancements.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Prioritization & Business Alignment

• Evaluate and prioritize incoming requests based on business impact, urgency, and technical feasibility.
• Set clear expectations with stakeholders, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
• Communicate trade-offs transparently, advocating for business value over reactive task execution.
• Develop a structured framework for prioritization that ensures mission-critical support needs are met while also advancing small enhancements that drive continuous improvement.

Leadership & Team Management

• Lead, mentor, and empower a high-performing team responsible for support, defect resolution, and small system enhancements.
• Ensure cross-team collaboration, fostering a shared understanding of priorities, dependencies, and technical solutions.
• Create and uphold accountability structures to ensure work is completed efficiently and with high quality.
• Drive a culture of ownership, problem-solving, and continuous learning.
• Champion and personally drive the team's use of agentic AI tools to boost team creativity, efficiency, and skill development.

Operational Excellence & Process Improvement

• Establish and refine processes for managing digital defects, incidents, and enhancement requests, ensuring smooth workflows and minimal disruption.
• Improve and implement best practices for ticketing, resolution timelines, and stakeholder communication.
• Analyze trends in defects and enhancement requests to identify opportunities for proactive improvements and efficiency gains.
• Drive continuous innovation by incorporating emerging trends and tools, including agentic AI, into project workflows.

Technical & Business Understanding

• Serve as the bridge between technology teams and business stakeholders, ensuring both sides understand priorities, constraints, and impacts.
• Maintain a strong technical grasp of digital systems, workflows, and potential challenges, ensuring informed decision-making.
• Provide guidance on best practices for system stability, scalability, and continuous improvement.

Stakeholder Communication & Expectation Management

• Set firm but fair expectations with business stakeholders, ensuring they understand how and why prioritization decisions are made.
• Provide regular updates on progress, challenges, and key outcomes related to support and enhancements.
• Communicate realistic timelines, risks, and trade-offs when managing requests.

Qualifications:

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field.

Experience

• 6+ years of experience in IT leadership, with a focus on managing digital operations, technical support, and system enhancements.
• Proven track record of making strategic prioritization decisions that drive business value.
• Strong background in technical support, bug resolution, and application enhancement.
• Experience implementing agentic AI development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex) and driving team-wide adoption in engineering workflows.

Technical & Business Expertise

• Strong understanding of digital applications, software development lifecycles, and IT support models.
• Ability to translate business needs into technical priorities and vice versa.
• Familiarity with modern ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira, Azure DevOps) and IT service management best practices.
• Hands-on proficiency with agentic AI coding tools such as Claude Code or Codex — not just chat-based AI assistants — to enhance development workflows.
• Fluency in prompt and context engineering — structuring instructions, memory, and tool access so an agent behaves reliably — and experience building reusable tooling (custom skills or commands, hooks, MCP integrations) around agentic coding assistants, not just ad hoc prompting.
• Understanding of the cost and reliability tradeoffs of agentic workflows at team scale — token usage, model selection, and when a task needs a human in the loop versus full autonomy.
• Ability to assess competing priorities and make firm, strategic decisions.
• Skilled in identifying high-impact improvements while maintaining system stability.
• Experience in building structured prioritization frameworks for IT support and enhancement requests.

Leadership & Communication

• Strong people leadership skills, with the ability to motivate and guide teams in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to set clear expectations and communicate priorities firmly yet diplomatically to stakeholders.
• Experience in negotiating and influencing senior leaders on digital priorities and trade-offs.
• Insists on verifying AI-generated work against real evidence — tests passing, logs, the actual deployed state — rather than accepting confident-sounding output at face value.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading IT support and continuous improvement teams in a large enterprise environment.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), ITIL frameworks, and Agile methodologies.
• Strong understanding of metrics-driven decision-making and process optimization.

Salary Range: $105,200 - $147,950

• Salary is commensurate to experience, location, etc.

Horace Mann was founded in 1945 by two Springfield, Illinois, teachers who saw a need for quality, affordable auto insurance for teachers. Since then, we’ve broadened our mission to helping all educators protect what they have today and prepare for a successful tomorrow. And with our broadened mission has come corporate growth: We serve more than 4,100 school districts nationwide, we’re publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol: HMN) and we have more than $12 billion in assets.

We’re motivated by the fact that educators take care of our children’s future, and we believe they deserve someone to look after theirs. We help educators identify their financial goals and develop plans to achieve them. This includes insurance to protect what they have today and financial products to help them prepare for their future. Our tailored offerings include special rates and benefits for educators.

EOE/Minorities/Females/Veterans/Disabled. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Enter manually

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

LinkedIn Profile

What is your compensation expectation for this role? *

Are you currently a Full-Time/Part-Time employee or appointee of Horace Mann Inc or any of its subsidiaries? * Select...

Have you ever been employed or appointed by Horace Mann or any of its subsidiaries as a Full-Time/Part-Time employee, temporary associate, contractor, or intern? * Select...

Are you at least 18 years of age? * Select...

What is your current address? *

Do you currently reside in Los Angeles County in CA, Kansas City, MO, New York City, NY or Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, Erie County in PA? * Select...

If hired, can you provide proof of your legal right to work and remain in the United States? * Select...

Will you now or in the future require sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H-1B, Whether immediate or following OPT/period of practical training, etc.)? Please note, marking this visa sponsorship question incorrectly will lead to immediate rescission of a job offer or termination of employment. * Select...

Are you subject to any agreement (Non-compete, non-solicitation, confidentiality, non-disclosure) that may restrict your ability to be employed with Horace Mann? * Select...

I certify that all information I have provided to Horace Mann Service Corp in support of my application for employment is true and accurate. * Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Horace Mann ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

We use Greenhouse’s AI-powered Talent Matching tool to compare your application against our job requirements.