Staff Software Engineer

About the role

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our team! In this role, you will provide technical leadership for Penn Mutual's Brokerage and RIA Technology Team, helping shape the architecture and technical direction of its platforms and systems. You will lead complex initiatives, influence technical decisions across teams, and ensure solutions align with business needs and long-term technology strategy.

While remaining hands-on in engineering and solution delivery, you will expand your impact through architecture, technical standards, reusable patterns, mentoring, and cross-team technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical direction and architecture for Penn Mutual's Brokerage and RIA Technology Team and its associated platforms and systems.
• Partner with product, engineering, architecture, business, cybersecurity, and platform leaders to develop technical roadmaps aligned with business priorities and long-term technology strategy.
• Define architecture, reference patterns, engineering standards, and reusable capabilities for AWS serverless data integration across major platforms and multiple engineering teams.
• Architect complex solutions spanning multiple applications, services, data sources, integrations, and technology platforms.
• Lead major cross-team technical initiatives from initial analysis and solution design through implementation and operational adoption.
• Establish and drive adoption of technical standards, reference implementations, and reusable components that improve consistency and scalability across engineering teams.
• Lead architecture and design reviews, ensuring significant technical decisions, trade-offs, dependencies, and risks are clearly documented.
• Identify and address systemic technical risks, including dependencies, scalability constraints, security concerns, and operational weaknesses.
• Resolve complex technical challenges that span systems, teams, applications, or organizational boundaries.
• Balance near-term delivery priorities with long-term maintainability, modernization, reliability, and technical-debt reduction.
• Influence product and technology roadmaps through technical expertise and a strong understanding of business priorities.
• Mentor Senior Software Engineers and other engineers, helping develop technical leadership capabilities across the organization.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and lead prototypes or proofs of concept for strategically significant capabilities.
• Communicate technical direction, architectural decisions, and recommendations to engineering teams, architects, business leaders, and other stakeholders.
• Promote engineering excellence through automation, observability, testing, documentation, security, and operational discipline.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Nine or more years of relevant software development experience, including significant technical leadership responsibilities.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering complex solutions spanning multiple systems, applications, platforms, or engineering teams.
• Deep expertise in AWS serverless and cloud-native data architecture, including orchestration, messaging, APIs, security, networking, observability, resiliency, data governance, and infrastructure automation.
• Deep knowledge of software architecture, design patterns, integration approaches, distributed systems, cloud platforms, and operational resilience.
• Strong proficiency in one or more programming languages, with the ability to contribute directly to solution design, development, prototyping, and technical reviews.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction and decisions across teams without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Experience establishing and driving adoption of reusable engineering patterns, technical standards, and platform capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to identify and resolve cross-team technical risks, dependencies, and complex technical challenges.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to clearly explain architecture decisions, technical recommendations, and trade-offs to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and strengthen technical and engineering capabilities across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading architecture for cloud-native, enterprise integration, data platform, or distributed systems initiatives.
• Experience with major cloud platforms and technologies, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, containerization, serverless computing, or managed data services.
• Experience with architecture modeling, architecture decision records, reference architectures, and technology roadmap development.
• Experience establishing enterprise architecture and engineering patterns using AWS services such as Glue, Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, EMR, SQS/SNS, API Gateway, S3, Athena, Lake Formation, Glue Data Catalog, and DynamoDB, as well as infrastructure-as-code technologies.
• Experience working in a regulated industry with security, audit, privacy, and data governance requirements.
• Relevant certifications in cloud architecture, security, software engineering, data engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• Experience with wealth management technology within a broker-dealer or Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) environment.

Base Salary Range: $150,000 - $165,000

For over 175 years, Penn Mutual has empowered individuals, families and businesses on the journey to achieve their financial goals. Through our partnership with Financial Professionals across the U.S., we help instill the confidence and reliability that comes from a stronger financial future. Penn Mutual and its affiliates offer a comprehensive suite of competitive products and services to meet the unique needs of Financial Professionals and their clients, including life insurance, annuities, wealth management and institutional asset management.

We provide employment and advancement opportunities to all qualified applicants and associates, according to applicable laws. This is reflected in our practices for hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, termination, recruitment, compensation, selection or training, and all other terms and conditions of employment. All employment-related decisions and practices are free from unlawful discrimination.