Engineering Director – Real Estate Tech & Platforms

Northwestern Mutual - Denver; Milwaukee (WI); Hybrid; USD 176,000 - 264,000; Full time

Job summary

Northwestern Mutual is seeking an Assistant Director of Software Engineering to own technical quality and delivery across UI, services, and data platforms. You will lead Real Estate engineering teams, drive security, reliability, and scalability, and mentor engineers to raise the team's maturity.

You will align with product managers and architects to translate business outcomes into pragmatic designs, overseeing frontend React, Node.js REST APIs, and data pipelines with strong data lineage.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software and data engineering experience with strong full-stack and data platform expertise.
• Experience leading engineers directly or 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.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate technical direction for Real Estate team, aligning with architecture, security, and delivery standards.
• Translate product 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).
• Drive decomposition and sequencing for initiatives spanning applications, APIs, pipelines, and warehouse models.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, observability, and reliability.
• Own technical risk management including architecture, integration, performance, and security risks.
• Ensure API and data integrations are well-documented, reusable, and resilient.
• Improve data reliability by guiding warehouse model quality, transformations, and performance.
• Guide incident response, root-cause analysis, and preventive engineering improvements.
• Serve as direct people leader for engineers, coaching, growth, and career development.
• Build engineering culture focused on ownership, quality, learning, and feedback.
• Lead regular technical and delivery reviews, fostering mentorship.
• Develop team capability through coaching, pairing, and skill development.
• Partner with Engineering Management on hiring, onboarding, and succession planning.
• Set clear expectations for technical excellence and operational readiness.

Skills

Databases & Data Platforms

Data Interpretation

Adaptive Communication

Engineering Expertise & Practices

Talent Development & Planning

Coaching & Mentoring

Product Roadmap

Job description

Northwestern Mutual is seeking an Assistant Director of Software Engineering to own technical quality and delivery across UI, services, and data platforms. You will lead Real Estate engineering teams, drive security, reliability, and scalability, and mentor engineers to raise the team's maturity.

You will align with product managers and architects to translate business outcomes into pragmatic designs, overseeing frontend React, Node.js REST APIs, and data pipelines with strong data lineage.