Mgr, Engineering - Developer Productivity

As a Manager of Engineering, you will you will lead a team of software and platform engineers while providing technical leadership for Thrivent's Engineering Productivity ecosystem, including our Internal Developer Platform (IDP), self-service engineering capabilities, and developer experience initiatives. You will own the vision, strategy, and evolution of platform capabilities that enable engineers to build, deploy, and operate software more effectively.

In this role, you will balance platform innovation with operational excellence, ensuring engineering productivity capabilities remain reliable, secure, scalable, and easy to maintain while continuously reducing developer friction. You will partner closely with engineers, architects, product leaders, and platform teams to identify developer pain points, translate them into platform capabilities, and drive adoption through intuitive self-service experiences.

As an Engineering Manager, you will champion modern engineering practices, evaluate emerging technologies, including Generative AI, and create pathways for teams to experiment, learn, and scale new capabilities across the enterprise with the goal to improve developer productivity, platform adoption, software delivery effectiveness, and engineering satisfaction.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Technical Leadership 

• Lead, coach and develop a team of engineers responsible for platform engineering, developer experience, cloud-native development, automation, and operational excellence. 

• Build a high-performing engineering culture focused on technical excellence and continuous improvement. 

• Provide architectural guidance and technical leadership across engineering teams. 

• Promote knowledge sharing and create mechanisms for teams to learn from successes and failures. 

• Influence engineering strategy and platform investments through data-driven recommendations and industry best practices. 

Internal Developer Platform Leadership 

• Define and drive the roadmap for the Internal Developer Platform, ensuring it delivers measurable value across engineering teams. 

• Build and evolve platform capabilities that simplify software delivery, improve consistency, and accelerate engineering velocity. 

• Partner with engineering teams to understand workflow challenges and continuously refine platform experiences based on feedback and usage patterns. 

• Drive adoption initiatives through enablement, education, documentation, and hands-on engagement with engineering teams. 

Developer Experience & Self-Service Engineering 

• Lead the strategy and evolution of self-service engineering capabilities that improve the software development lifecycle and reduce developer friction. 

• Translate developer pain points into platform capabilities, golden paths, paved-road experiences, and reusable engineering solutions. 

• Create intuitive, scalable solutions that enable engineers to provision infrastructure, deploy applications, manage services, and access development resources independently. 

• Measure success through platform adoption, developer satisfaction, productivity gains, and reduced operational burden rather than feature output alone. 

Platform Ownership & Reliability 

• Own the health, reliability, security, scalability, and long-term sustainability of Thrivent's Engineering Productivity platforms and Internal Developer Platform (IDP). 

• Balance delivery of new capabilities with platform maintenance, technical debt reduction, modernization efforts, and lifecycle management of legacy solutions. 

• Drive platform stability through proactive monitoring, operational excellence, reliability engineering practices, and continuous improvement. 

• Establish and maintain engineering standards, architectural guardrails, and platform governance practices that support enterprise-scale adoption. 

Engineering Productivity & Modernization 

• Continuously evaluate emerging technologies, tools, and engineering practices—including Generative AI and AI-assisted development capabilities—to improve software quality and developer productivity. 

• Foster a culture of experimentation, continuous learning, and responsible innovation. 

• Lead proof-of-concepts, pilot programs, and experiential learning initiatives that validate new platform capabilities before scaling. 

• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive work, streamline delivery processes, and improve the overall developer experience. 

QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS:   

 Required: 

• Strong understanding of modern software engineering practices, platform engineering, Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs), and developer experience with experience building, operating, and evolving an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) at enterprise scale. 

• Demonstrated success implementing golden paths, paved roads, self-service engineering capabilities, and developer productivity tooling. 

• Experience defining platform success metrics, including adoption, developer satisfaction, deployment efficiency, lead time reduction, and friction reduction. 

• Experience improving developer experience through platform engineering and adoption-focused product thinking. 

• 8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, including experience in developer productivity, developer experience, and software delivery platforms with a track record of improving engineering effectiveness and operational outcomes. 

• 3+ years of leadership experience driving technical strategy, execution, and continuous improvement across engineering teams. 

• 3+ years of people leadership experience leading technical teams responsible for shared engineering capabilities, with demonstrated success developing talent and fostering technical excellence. 

• Proven history of managing high-performing software engineering or platform engineering teams. 

• Strong competency in project management and execution of multiple or large projects.  

• Strong understanding of platform engineering, DevOps, cloud-native architectures, CI/CD, developer portals, infrastructure automation, and software delivery platforms. 

• 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 with the ability to make decisions based on limited information. 

• Ability to formulate, implement and evaluate plans, programs and procedures applicable to customer relationship and demand management.  

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience  

 Preferred:   

• MBA  

• Experience evaluating and implementing AI-assisted software development capabilities and developer productivity solutions. 

• 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  

Pay TransparencyThrivent’s long-term growth depends on attracting, rewarding, and retaining people who are committed to helping others thrive with purpose. We accomplish this by offering a wide variety of market competitive compensation programs to attract, reward, and retain top talent. The applicable salary or hourly wage range for this full-time role is $139,455.00 - $188,676.00 per year, which factors in various geographic regions. The base pay actually offered will be determined by a variety of factors including, but not limited to, location, relevant experience, skills, and knowledge, business needs, market demand, and other factors Thrivent deems important.Thrivent is unique in our commitment to helping people to be wise with money and live balanced and generous lives. That extends to our benefits.The following benefits may be offered: various bonuses (including, for example, annual or long-term incentives); medical, dental, and vision insurance; health savings account; flexible spending account; 401k; pension; life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance; supplemental protection insurance; 20 days of Paid Time Off each year; Sick and Safe Time; 10 paid company holidays; Volunteer Time Off; paid parental leave; EAP; well-being benefits, and other employee benefits. Eligibility for receipt of these benefits is subject to the applicable plan/policy documents. Thrivent’s plans/policies are subject to change at any time at Thrivent’s discretion.

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 [email protected] or call 800-847-4836 and request Human Resources.

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