Chief Software Architect

With roots dating back to 1957, Symetra Financial has grown to become a family of companies that together serve approximately 1.7 million customers in all 50 states. Symetra encourages an entrepreneurial culture that rewards new ideas and independent thinking and we believe each one of us plays a key role in our success. We support this culture by empowering employees with the resources to do the job, the peace of mind that comes with quality benefits, and rewards for outstanding performance. Employees have the opportunity for growth and development throughout their Symetra career by working on challenging projects and assignments, and exploring new fields within our organization. Symetra employs 1,300 people, holds nearly $20 billion in assets, and is the largest private company in Washington state. The Chief Enterprise Architect role at Symetra Financial provides an exciting opportunity for an experienced leader who thrives on opportunities that can directly influence the value that IT provides in growing our business and supporting the needs of our employees and our customers.  The successful candidate is:   · A technologist: You have one or more domains of expertise; you’re driven to stay current, you have an insatiable appetite for following trends and expanding your technical knowledge. · A communicator: Technology evolves quickly, and even the most effective systems are highly complex. You can communicate and connect with technology staff, distilling complexity into a vision that all can see and understand. You have the same ability in connecting with the people who grow, manage or support our business every day. · A listener: Meaningful future-state objectives are the direct result of superb listening skills.  Taking in business perspectives, including goals and objectives, along with feedback from technologists in defining plans and practices is crucially important. · A leader: Driving change requires a highly skilled leader; one who can help define the path to success, and who can affect that evolution through others through leading by example, gaining consensus, and building a strong sense of purpose across the organization. · A planner: Enterprise Architecture at Symetra is about understanding our business, understanding our markets, applying deep strategic technical knowledge against that to build a future state vision that supports our growth objectives. · An innovator: We understand that plans change as markets change or as technology evolves. Innovation requires the ability to look at everything as an opportunity, and to be equipped with the knowledge, mindset, and skills to adapt or invent. · A steward: Enterprise Architecture is a planning activity, an ongoing operating discipline, and success is measured through results. The Chief Enterprise Architect must manage a program with a focus on achieving measurable results in support of a future-state plan.   Responsibilities:   · As a key member of Symetra IT, provide enterprise architecture leadership across Symetra’s core systems and related applications. Coordinate with domain and solution architects to evolve architecture in alignment with enterprise goals and objectives. · Encourage reuse and value creation across IT around existing applications and support product development and innovation for our operating businesses. · Provide key subject matter leadership across the organization, internal consulting on technology capabilities and trends, and exhibit leadership through collaboration, mentoring and technical guidance of IT staff. · Manage a distributed Enterprise Architecture practice comprised of domain architects (centrally postioned) and solution architects (distributed with aligned business divisions), ensuring the adoption of standards, practices, and patterns in support of future state objectives. · Coordinate the definition of our future-state architecture for technology infrastructure (fully outsourced) through third party partnerships and vendor relationships. · Requires significant interaction, coordination and facilitation at multiple levels of technical and business management for a complex technology environment. · Participation in the management and governance of technology standards, blueprints and technology strategy, with a specific focus on software reuse and infrastructure simplification. · Advise and assist the Assistant Vice President of Enterprise Services and Chief Information Officer with respect to technical strategies, directions and opportunities.   Requirements:   · 8-15 years of development and architecture experience, with responsibility for technical leadership and architecture across multiple projects; exposure to and experience with enterprise architecture preferred. · Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related discipline required; Masters Degree preferred. · Management and team leadership experience required. · Experience with complex technical development and integration in large organizations with significant reliability, performance and security requirements. · Exposure to and experience with strategy definition and execution. · Experience with multiple technologies (e.g. C/C#, Java, .Net/C#,), platforms (e.g. Windows, MVS), integration methodologies (e.g. online processing, queued messaging, web services, batch processing, ‘Straight Through Processing’, and ETL). Experience in a hybrid environment that includes mainframe systems, Windows-based midrange systems, robust web functionality for external partners, and data integration platforms is strongly preferred. · Experience in the Insurance or Financial Services industry is strongly preferred. · Must have superb customer relationship and facilitation skills, written and verbal communication skills. · Must be able to establish direction, work independently, and guide teams.     Location: Bellevue, WA 98004 Status: Full Time, Employee Job Category: IT/Software Development Relevant Work Experience: 7+ to 10 Years Career Level: Manager (Manager/Supervisor of Staff) Education Level: Bachelor's Degree