VP AI Data Engineering, Business Insurance

Hartford; Connecticut; Hybrid; USD 222,000 - 334,000; Full time

Job summary

The Hartford is seeking a Vice President of AI Data Engineering to lead the Business Insurance Data Engineering portfolio. This executive will shape strategy, organization, and delivery of AI-ready data foundations that support analytics, automation, ML, and agentic AI across underwriting, pricing, servicing and claims.

The role requires deep data engineering expertise, strong P&C insurance insight, and a track record of leading large teams.

Qualifications

• 18+ years of experience in Data Engineering, data platforms, AI-ready data ecosystems, or related tech leadership.
• 10+ years of progressive leadership, including leading senior leaders and large portfolios.
• Proven ability to translate business strategy into Data Engineering strategy, roadmaps, and workforce plans.
• Experience building enterprise data products, semantic layers, and governance for trusted analytics.

Responsibilities

• Define and champion the Business Insurance AI Data Engineering strategy and operating model.
• Set priorities and allocate resources across data products, modernization, AI-ready data foundations, and technical debt.
• Ensure delivery of trusted, reusable, scalable data products, pipelines, and data foundations for analytics, ML, and generative AI.
• Lead agentic analytics strategy enabling governed AI agents and decision-support over trusted data.
• Partner with Analytics, AI, Architecture, Product, Governance to ground AI in authoritative data and traceable evidence.
• Oversee data quality, lineage, observability, and lifecycle management across underwriting, pricing, distribution, servicing, and claims.

Skills

Data engineering leadership

AI/ML strategy

Data platforms

Cloud architecture

Python

SQL

Snowflake

Spark

Kafka

Governance

RAG analytics

Agentic analytics

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

Snowflake

Spark

Kafka

AWS/GCP

SQL

APIs

Job description

VP AI Data Engineering, Business Insurance### VP AI Data Engineering, Business InsuranceApply: Hybrid: Hartford, CT: Morristown, NJ: Full time: Posted Yesterday: R2627586VP IT Management - IM04AEWe’re determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future. Join The Hartford as we continue to advance data and AI capabilities across Business Insurance. We are seeking a highly accomplished Vice President of AI Data Engineering to lead the Business Insurance Data Engineering portfolio. This executive will shape the strategy, organization, and delivery of trusted, governed, scalable, and AI-ready data capabilities that enable Business Insurance priorities. The ideal candidate brings deep Data Engineering expertise, strong Property & Casualty insurance acumen, and a record of leading large technical organizations and complex portfolios. The role requires the ability to translate business strategy into data products, modernization priorities, AI-ready data foundations, workforce capabilities, and measurable outcomes in partnership with business and technology leaders. This is an opportunity for a strategic data leader to shape the future of Business Insurance by strengthening the data foundations required for analytics, automation, machine learning, generative AI, and emerging agentic AI capabilities. This role can have a Hybrid work arrangement and can be based in Hartford, CT or the NYC/NJ metro area*. **Must be eligible to work in the US without company sponsorshi***p. **Key Responsibilities*** Define and champion the Business Insurance AI Data Engineering strategy and operating model, translating business priorities into multi-year portfolio plans, capability roadmaps, workforce requirements, and measurable outcomes.* Set priorities and allocate resources across data products, modernization, AI-ready data foundations, technical debt, operational resilience, and emerging business needs.* Ensure delivery and ongoing operation of trusted, reusable, and scalable data products, pipelines, semantic assets, and data foundations supporting analytics, automation, machine learning, generative AI, RAG, and agentic AI.* Lead the Business Insurance agentic analytics strategy, enabling governed AI agents and decision-support experiences that can discover, interpret, reason over, and act on trusted enterprise data while maintaining human accountability for material business decisions.* Build and scale enterprise data intelligence layers that combine business semantics, contextual metadata, ontologies, knowledge graphs, metrics, policies, lineage, and access controls so analytics and AI consistently interpret Business Insurance data in the right business context.* Establish reusable semantic layers and governed business metrics across underwriting, pricing, distribution, servicing, claims, risk, customer, operations, and finance, reducing inconsistent definitions and accelerating trusted self-service and AI-assisted analysis.* Partner with Analytics, AI, Architecture, Product, Governance, and business leaders to deliver context-rich data products and retrieval patterns that ground generative and agentic AI in authoritative data, approved definitions, and traceable evidence.* Define the operating model and controls for agentic data and analytics, including agent access, identity, authorization, observability, evaluation, audit trails, feedback loops, exception handling, and lifecycle management.* Connect Data Engineering capabilities to outcomes across underwriting, pricing, distribution, servicing, claims, risk management, customer, operational, and financial priorities.* Guide the evolution of structured and unstructured data capabilities, including metadata, semantic assets, contextual data, embeddings, vector and graph technologies, retrieval and grounding data, and governed external data sources.* Establish expectations for data quality, testing, lineage, traceability, observability, reliability, lifecycle management, operational readiness, data contracts, service levels, and consumer accountability.* Champion responsible use of AI-assisted engineering to improve productivity, quality, testing, documentation, and delivery speed while maintaining appropriate human oversight and controls.* Lead a large, complex organization through senior leaders, strengthening leadership effectiveness, organizational health, succession, talent development, and long-term capability sustainability.* Own portfolio delivery, operational performance, cost effectiveness, workforce outcomes, risk management, control maturity, audit readiness, and value realization.* Partner with business and technical executives to align priorities, architecture direction, platform capabilities, governance requirements, dependencies, and outcomes while maintaining clear Data Engineering accountability.* Remove organizational and cross-functional barriers, guide major multidimensional initiatives, and adjust priorities based on business, financial, workforce, operational, quality, and risk insights.* Represent Business Insurance AI Data Engineering with senior leaders, governance bodies, strategic partners, and vendors while monitoring emerging data and AI trends and their business implications.**Qualifications*** Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Business, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.* 18+ years of applicable experience in Data Engineering, data platforms, AI-ready data ecosystems, software engineering for data-intensive systems, technology leadership, or related disciplines.* 10+ years of progressive leadership experience, including leading senior leaders, large technical organizations, complex portfolios, or business-critical enterprise capabilities.* Demonstrated success translating business strategy into Data Engineering strategy, operating models, portfolio priorities, resource plans, workforce capabilities, and multi-year roadmaps.* Proven experience establishing enterprise data-product, semantic-layer, or data-intelligence capabilities that improve trusted reuse, consistent business interpretation, and measurable outcomes.* Demonstrated leadership in enabling advanced analytics, generative AI, RAG, or agentic analytics through governed, context-rich, and traceable enterprise data foundations.* Experience partnering across Data Engineering, Analytics, AI, Architecture, Product, Governance, Risk, and business teams to deliver shared capabilities and resolve complex ownership and operating-model decisions.* Proven experience managing significant budgets, workforce resources, strategic vendors, modernization priorities, and portfolio performance.* Strong business and financial acumen with the ability to connect Data and AI capabilities to measurable Business Insurance outcomes.* Meaningful experience advising executive leaders, influencing strategic decisions, navigating complex tradeoffs, and leading organizational change, including adoption of AI-enabled ways of working.* Exceptional executive communication, judgment, negotiation, relationship management, conflict resolution, presentation, and storytelling skills.* Significant Property & Casualty or Business Insurance experience strongly preferred.**Technical Skills*** Mastery of modern Data Engineering and AI-ready data foundations, including data products, pipelines, data contracts, semantic and contextual data, metadata, lineage, quality, observability, reliability, testing, and lifecycle management.* Deep expertise in enterprise data intelligence patterns that combine semantic layers, governed metrics, business glossaries, contextual metadata, ontologies, knowledge graphs, policies, lineage, and access controls.* Strong understanding of agentic analytics architectures and operating patterns, including tool and data access, agent identity and authorization, retrieval and grounding, orchestration, memory and context, human-in-the-loop controls, evaluation, observability, auditability, exception handling, and lifecycle management.* Deep understanding of data foundations supporting generative AI, RAG, and agentic AI, including embeddings, vector and graph technologies, retrieval structures, grounding data, trusted access, evidence traceability, and lifecycle governance.* Demonstrated ability to design reusable semantic models and governed business metrics that support consistent analysis and AI interpretation across underwriting, pricing, distribution, servicing, claims, risk, customer, operations, and finance.* Strong understanding of enterprise data architecture and platform concepts, with the ability to partner effectively with Architecture and Platform Engineering while maintaining accountability for Data Engineering strategy and delivery.* Strong fluency in Python, SQL, distributed processing, Snowflake, Spark, Kafka, cloud-native technologies, orchestration, streaming, APIs, and hybrid or multi-cloud environments.* Experience designing and operating complex data ecosystems across cloud platforms such as AWS or Google Cloud, including large-scale data integration, warehouse, lake, lakehouse, domain, API, vector, and graph capabilities.* Strong understanding of AI-assisted engineering and the governance, human oversight, validation, traceability, workforce, and operational practices required for responsible adoption at scale.* Deep understanding of Data Governance, Responsible AI, privacy, security, model and data risk, auditability, regulatory obligations, compliance, records management, and enterprise control frameworks.* Demonstrated ability to evaluate technical, modernization, vendor, resource, operational, and risk tradeoffs using business, financial, technical, and regulatory context.**Compensation**The listed annualized base pay range is primarily based on analysis of similar positions in the external market. Actual base pay could vary and may be above or below the listed range based on factors including but not limited to performance, proficiency and demonstration of competencies required for the role. The base pay is just one component of The Hartford’s total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include short-term or annual bonuses, long-term incentives, and on-the-spot recognition. The annualized base pay range for this role is:$222,480 - $333,720Equal Opportunity Employer/Sex/Race/Color/Veterans/Disability/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity or Expression/Religion/Age