Description

At Thrivent, we are focused on a digital transformation that will deliver modern, innovative experiences for our clients, financial advisors, and employees. We are investing in data and technology, using DevOps practices, and building an engineering culture of empowered technical experts. Our technologists are involved in work that includes cloud native development, digital architecture and integration, automation, cloud data platforms, artificial intelligence, and machine learning as well as maximizing platforms such as Salesforce, AWS and Microsoft.

This is an exciting opportunity as the full-time Data Engineering Manager as we are in the early stages of building an enterprise Trusted Data Platform with modern engineering practices and hybrid cloud implementation. As a Data Engineering Manager, you will lead team of Engineers responsible for building Data Pipelines to populate data hub used for business decision making. You will bring a passion to stay on top of current trends, experiment with and learn new technologies. You will encourage collaboration across stakeholders and business partners, innovation, implementation of cutting-edge technologies, outside-of-the-box thinking, teamwork, and self-organization. This role will report to the Director, Data Engineering but will develop budgets, schedules, and department objectives and metrics derived from organizational objectives.

Designing Solutions

• Review technical solution design and data architecture and provide guidance and direction
• Take part in system design and architecture conversations with the team to land approaches to deliver data solution
• Review technical solution and supports the execution of the solution

Developing Data Solutions

• Help develop sustainable data solutions with current and leading gen data technologies to transform business
• Actively engage in technology strategy and data architecture across enterprise
• Break down complex data issues and resolve them
• Build robust systems with an eye on automation and the long-term maintenance and support of the application

Learning and applying new techniques

• Promotes and empowers sharing ideas, best practices, etc. They need to make space so teams can take time for these activities.
• Anticipates and analyzes trends in Data and assesses the impact of emerging technologies on the business

Collaborating within team

• Supports the team agile practices and learning events / trainings
• Helps break down barriers for the team
• Engages in sprint demos; Understands the desired and actual outcomes as well as the technology delivered by the team
• Partner with Product Manager on Initiatives/ Features/ Epics and provides clarity on desired outcomes as well as technical expertise
• Collaborates with Product manager for strategies, operating plans, targets and measures for product groups 
• Creating a positive team environment where individuals have psychological safety and work collaboratively while understanding, respecting, challenging and appreciating each other’s ideas

Collaborating across teams

• Supports and empowers teams to broker solutions across products
• Understands how the product integrates with other products and ensures consistency in approach to work towards a common goal / outcome.
• Builds strong working relationships with peers across teams
• Proactively identifies cross team challenges and works to empower teams in solve collaboratively

Collaborating across the organization

• Align your team with the priorities of the company and the technology organization for a given product area

Setting product/platform technology strategy

• Participates in setting the product and platform technology vision, strategies, initiatives, roadmaps , objectives and alignments
• Represents the business value of technology upgrades, etc. and influences prioritization in the product roadmap
• Empowers the team to select the right tool and platforms for the given product area.

Defining Engineering standards/patterns

• Collaborating with Engineers to ensure Engineering practices and be an advocate to bring the engineering disciplines.
• Promoting engineering practices and continuous improvement such as develops and observability
• Contributes to the creation of enterprise frameworks and patterns

DevOps

• Define and supports the development Lifecyle processes
• Supports the team and removes barriers to resolving production incidents/problems
• DevOps continuously evaluated through observability, monitoring and alerting
• Understands the health of technology products and promotes prioritization of work to maintain and continuously improve
• Serve as an escalation point in product level support for ongoing maintenance and production issues 

Selecting & Managing Technology Vendors

• Be an advocate to the team to define criteria’s for selecting the right platform/technology
• Guides the team to build consensus on an approach and driving a build vs buy decision with the team. In a buy decision, works with the team to decide on criteria and vendor selection.
• Execute or manage the overall technology solutions, platforms for the product groups and associated vendor relationships.

Coaching Engineers

• Holding regular 1:1s with team members and team meeting,
• Provides constructive feedback, guidance and coaching to help engineers grow their skills and experience.
• Provides career planning advice to engineers and creates development plans to help them achieve their career goals which leverages their skills and capabilities and provides them with learning opportunities.

Recruiting/building talent

• Leads the process of selecting and engaging the right consulting partners
• Planning in advance for future people needs for the product groups, collaborate with the other teams on the recruitment process
• Recruits, develops, and sustains a high-performing team while promoting a culture of shared accountability, operational excellence, and partnership across the organization.
• Models Thrivent’s leadership competencies – courage, collaboration, and commitment by demonstrating resiliency, working together to make the best decisions, and holding yourself and others accountable.  ​
• Supports and/or develops an environment in which Thrivent employees and colleagues are focused on continuous improvement, exceptional employee engagement, and an unwavering commitment to our clients.  Shapes and/or supports a culture that represents the Thrivent purpose, promise and values, ensuring that Thrivent’s trust and reputation remain strong with its clients.  
• Manage a team of direct and indirect staff 

QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS:  

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience 
• 8+ years of progressively responsible positions in Information Technology including 5+ years’ experience in Data Engineering
• 3+ years of leadership experience in all aspects of Data Engineering
• 3+ years’ management/supervisory experience in Data Engineering with accountability for enforcing talent management needs and performance standards. 
• Demonstrated leadership and experience managing multidiscipline, high-performance work teams. 
• Strong competency in project management and execution of multiple or large projects. 
• Experience working with customers to develop solutions to complex business problems. 
• Proven ability to communicate effectively with internal/external stakeholders to support business initiatives. 
• Proven ability to function in an environment which requires flexibility, good judgment and intelligent decision making, often based on limited information and/or extreme conditions. 
• Ability to formulate, implement and evaluate plans, programs and procedures applicable to customer relationship and demand management. 

Preferred: 

• MBA 
• At least 4 years of Data Engineering experience with Big Data Technologies: Apache Spark, Hadoop, or Kafka
• At least 3 years of microservices development experience: Python, Java or Scala
• At least 2 years of experience building data pipelines, CICD pipelines, and fit for purpose data stores
• At least 1 year of experience in Cloud technologies: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OpenStack, Docker, Ansible, Chef or Terraform
• Financial Services industry experience 
• Experience in IT planning and business relationship management 
• Experience working in a matrix management organization 
• Experience with product development and management 

Thrivent provides Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) without regard to race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable local, state, or federal law. This policy applies to all employees and job applicants.

Thrivent is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please let us know by sending an email to  human.resources@thrivent.com  or call 800-847-4836 and request Human Resources.