Director Software Engineering at Manulife in Waterloo, ON

Job description

The Director, Software Engineering will lead the evolution of Manulife's Software Engineering Shared Services function within Global Technology. This leadership role is accountable for establishing a scalable engineering operating model, driving engineering excellence, improving software delivery quality, and accelerating adoption of AI-enabled software development practices. The successful candidate will work across engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, platform, and operations teams to advance modern software engineering capabilities, strengthen operational resilience, and build high-performing engineering teams that deliver measurable business value. Position Responsibilities Lead and mature the Software Engineering Shared Services operating model across GFT, including intake management, prioritization, capacity planning, demand visibility, delivery forecasting, and service governance. Drive engineering delivery excellence through improved software quality, release management, automated testing, CI/CD adoption, operational resilience, and continuous improvement practices. Establish engineering standards, guardrails, and reusable development practices across software delivery, secure development, GitHub workflows, release processes, and engineering metrics. Champion AI-assisted software engineering and autonomous SDLC practices to improve developer productivity and engineering effectiveness. Partner with Architecture, Cybersecurity, Platform Engineering, Operations, and Quality Engineering teams to align engineering practices with enterprise standards and business priorities. Lead incident response, vulnerability remediation, disaster recovery readiness, and production stability initiatives across software engineering services. Build, coach, and develop a high-performing team of engineering leaders and engineers while fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. Leverage engineering metrics and dashboards to improve visibility into demand, delivery health, technical health, capacity, cost optimization, and engineering performance. Required Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience. 12+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, technology delivery, platform engineering, or engineering leadership roles. 5+ years of people leadership experience leading engineering managers, technical leads, or distributed engineering teams. Demonstrated experience building, scaling, or operating engineering shared services, platform teams, developer enablement, or engineering excellence organizations. Strong knowledge of modern software engineering practices, including CI/CD, DevSecOps, automated testing, cloud-native development, APIs, observability, release management, and operational resilience. Experience leading software delivery health, production support, incident management, risk remediation, and quality improvement initiatives in complex enterprise environments. Proven ability to influence and collaborate across matrixed organizations while balancing competing priorities and stakeholder expectations. Strong communication, coaching, organizational, and strategic leadership skills. Preferred Qualifications Experience within financial services, insurance, or other highly regulated industries. Experience implementing AI-assisted software development, developer productivity tooling, or autonomous SDLC practices. Knowledge of GitHub modernization, engineering automation platforms, and software engineering enablement programs. Experience with budgeting, vendor management, capacity planning, and resource optimization. Experience leading large-scale engineering transformations and organizational change initiatives. Professional certifications in Agile, SAFe, Scrum, Cloud Technologies, DevOps, or related disciplines. Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business Administration,