Sr Director, Information Systems

Travelers; Hartford (CT); On-site; USD 146,000 - 242,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401(k) match

Job summary

Travelers is seeking a Sr. Director, Engineering and Operations Effectiveness to lead EXO's engagement model, demand lifecycle, vendor strategy, and delivery excellence within BI Technology. You will drive AI-enabled improvements, establish cross-functional governance, and mentor Delivery Leads across the portfolio.

The role emphasizes strategic planning, budget responsibility, and stakeholder collaboration to transform engineering operations and achieve scalable delivery outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 9 years of technology or business related experience.
• 3 years of experience managing others.

Responsibilities

• Own EXO's Unified Engagement Model across core stakeholder groups and portfolio.
• End-to-end ownership of emerging demand.
• Be the single source of truth for demand into EXO from enterprise and value streams.
• Manage intake, prioritization, readiness and implementation for demand.
• Own EXO vendor and technology contract management and cost accountability.
• Lead the Delivery Lead team and set standards for planning, execution, and dependency management.
• Provide timely status updates and insights to IT leadership.
• Contribute to strategic technology operational plans and budget.

Skills

Change catalyst

Stakeholder management

Delivery leadership

AI tooling fluency

Tech strategy

Influence without authority

Agile at scale

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Job description

Who Are We? Taking care of our customers, our communities and each other. That’s the Travelers Promise. By honoring this commitment, we have maintained our reputation as one of the best property casualty insurers in the industry for over 170 years. Join us to discover a culture that is rooted in innovation and thrives on collaboration. Imagine loving what you do and where you do it.

Compensation Overview

Job Category Technology Compensation Overview The annual base salary range provided for this position is a nationwide market range and represents a broad range of salaries for this role across the country. The actual salary for this position will be determined by a number of factors, including the scope, complexity and location of the role; the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; and other conditions of employment. As part of our comprehensive compensation and benefits program, employees are also eligible for performance-based cash incentive awards.

Salary Range $146,400.00 - $241,600.00

Target Openings 1

What Is the Opportunity?

Travelers is seeking a Sr. Director, Engineering and Operations Effectiveness, to join Business Insurance (BI) Technology as we transform engineering and technology operations. Engineering Excellence and Operations (EXO) leads engineering transformation and modernization across BI Technology. In this role you will lead the function that connects EXO's three functional areas, Engineering Transformation, Portfolio Modernization, and Technology Operations, to every partner that depends on them. That includes Value Streams, Operations, Planning & Execution, and various enterprise partners. In that capacity, you are accountable for EXO's engagement model, emerging demand pipeline, vendor and contract strategy, operational metrics our leadership team makes decisions from, and a team of Delivery Leads embedded across the portfolio. Since this is a change catalyst role, you are expected to drive delivery effectiveness, leverage and infuse AI throughout our delivery practices, and ensure a unified stakeholder engagement model. This role plans at a strategic level and manages the effective use of resources. Directs assigned staff to implement and/or maintain systems and/or assigned project(s). Moderate to broad scope of responsibility as defined by such things as span of control, number of systems/projects, and/or complexity of systems/projects. Works closely with key stakeholders to build relationships and to ensure timely completion of deliverables. Influences technical direction of projects and system support. Provides talent management to team members.

What Will You Do?

• Own EXO's Unified Engagement Model across its core stakeholder groups and full functional portfolio including engineering transformation, application modernization, vendor provisioned Managed Services, and production operations.
• Own emerging demand end to end.
• Be the single source of truth for demand coming into EXO from the enterprise and the value streams.
• Run the intake and demand forums, drive prioritization with the functional leads and other stakeholders, and manage demand from intake through readiness and implementation.
• Own EXO vendor and technology contract management.
• Be the single point of accountability for contracts, vendor management, and cost.
• Rationalize the portfolio, drive equivalent terms and cost reduction across vendors, and reshape vendor scope and pricing as AI changes expectations.
• Build and lead the EXO delivery center of excellence.
• Transform delivery practice from separate functional interpretations into one repeatable standard, with the playbooks, cadences, and assessments to sustain it.
• Own EXO metrics and reporting for EXO's partners and stakeholders.
• Define the reporting requirements, govern the underlying data and engineering health indicators, and produce reporting that drives decisions.
• Lead the Delivery Lead team.
• The Delivery Leads report to you and are matrixed into the functional areas.
• You set the standard for what a Delivery Lead does here: planning rigor, execution discipline, dependency management, impediment removal, and insights leaders can act on.
• You are accountable for their performance, coaching, formal reviews, and development.
• Directs assigned staff to implement and/or maintain systems of high complexity and/or projects of major business unit significance.
• Contributes significantly to the strategic technology operational plans and department budget.
• Has responsibility for developing/ implementing a tactical and/or operational plan and staying within the departmental budget.
• A technology leader in the effort to utilize technology to develop and/or redesign the organization's processes.
• Has awareness of Enterprise strategies and impact on the line of business or functional area of responsibility.
• Provides key project stakeholders and IT leadership with timely status updates and/or system performance updates.
• Applies knowledge of current industry trends and techniques to formulate solutions within the context of assigned projects and/or enhancements.
• Accountable for directing team in order to achieve deliverables.
• Manages team direction and the day-to-day work of direct reports.
• Responsible for providing consistent performance feedback/coaching and completing formal performance reviews.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

What Will Our Ideal Candidate Have?

• Bachelor's degree in a related field.
• 9 years of technology or business related experience.
• 3 years of experience managing others.

Role Specific Experience:

• A record as a change catalyst. You have taken an operating model, standard, or practice from documented to practiced across a large organization, and you can describe what you stopped doing as clearly as what you started.
• Influence without authority. You have held a cross-organizational forum together where none of the participants reported to you, and produced decisions from it.
• Delivery leadership at scale. Agile at scale, planning and dependency management across multiple teams, and comfort with flow and DORA-style delivery metrics.
• Vendor and contract fluency. Managed service agreements, tiered service models, time and materials versus outcome-based structures, burn rate management, chargeback, and working partnerships with Sourcing, Finance, and HR.
• Demonstrated AI fluency. You have personally used AI tooling to change a process you owned, you can reason about where agents and automation replace coordination work, and you can hold a credible conversation about what AI leverage should do to vendor pricing, staffing mix, and delivery metrics.
• Metrics and data judgment. You know the difference between a metric that changes behavior and performance theater.
• Stakeholder management as a discipline. You measure satisfaction, act on what it tells you, and raise the difficult thing early rather than letting it surface in a steering forum.
• Technical Knowledge: Broad conceptual understanding of capabilities and direction of technology, coupled with an in-depth knowledge of the technology required and the needs of business environment necessary to support assigned systems and/or projects.
• Develops solutions to meet business needs that reflect a clear understanding of the objectives, practices & procedures.
• Has a thorough understanding of staff responsibilities, abilities and development needs.
• Business Knowledge & Partnership: Provides direction and effectively leads by example to ensure that all services are meeting the business objectives on a timely basis with excellent quality, at a reasonable cost.
• Suggests solutions that make sense and are in line with future technology direction.
• Keeps all areas informed of developments affecting their function.
• Demonstrates flexibility, anticipates customer needs, and effectively communicates in a manner consistent with the audience.
• Educates and influences customers on the most effective use of technology, from a short- and long-term perspective.
• Problem Solving & Decision Making: Demonstrates advanced analytical and diagnostic skills dealing with issues that are novel and not readily defined, lack known precedent or appear contradictory.
• Able to develop solutions by applying accepted processes or is able to create new approaches to leverage technology from abstract information.
• Sees the big picture and is fully aware of technology and business directions.
• Has department, corporate and group objectives in focus while identifying and removing barriers.
• Optimizes the use of all available resources.
• Leadership: Manages cross-functional objectives/priorities supporting an assigned business area(s).
• Responsibilities are assigned with considerable latitude for decision making.
• Results reviewed periodically according to predefined objectives.
• Sets level of risk taking, and gathers/synthesizes information to all appropriate levels of the organization.
• Planning & Project Management: Insures all planning done on the area level is supportive of the business strategic plans.
• Appropriately delegates while maintaining accountability; sees that projects are assigned by workload and capabilities.
• Completes projects accurately and on time.
• Critical planning is required as modifications are difficult and costly and may impair achieving of departmental/corporate objectives.
• Change requires reassessing and adjusting tactical and/or operational direction.
• Knowledge of Agile methodology and ability to apply them to projects of moderate complexity.
• In the Agile environment the Sr Director level typically performs as the Release Train Engineer or Kanban Service Delivery Manager.
• Team Orientation.
• Financial Awareness.
• Human Resource Management.
• Depend on the specific role but some examples may include.
• ITIL.
• Kanban/Agile/SAFe.

What is a Must Have?

• High School diploma or equivalent.
• 5 years of technology or business related experience.

What Is in It for You?

• Health Insurance: Employees and their eligible family members - including spouses, domestic partners, and children - are eligible for coverage from the first day of employment.
• Retirement: Travelers matches your 401(k) contributions dollar-for-dollar up to your first 5% of eligible pay, subject to an annual maximum.