Senior Telecom Engineer

Overview At Banner Life Insurance Company, we lead with heart and ambition. Every day, we transform purpose into progress, guided by our unwavering commitment to be better for our customers, clients, and communities, not just today but long‑term as well. Our people are the driving force behind everything we achieve. Their passion, purpose, and pursuit of innovation empower us to deliver cutting‑edge solutions that support those we serve, ensuring we are here for you, here for good and striving for better. We’re a forward‑thinking company energized by our work and how we show up for one another. Our culture is built on meaningful impact and genuine enjoyment, because we believe great work and great experiences should go hand in hand. By offering career development opportunities, comprehensive benefits, and programs that support your wellbeing, we help you thrive personally and professionally. We are here for you, here for good and here for better. Banner Life has experienced significant growth over the past several years, driven by digital transformation and platform‑led innovation. As we look ahead, we have an ambitious goal to more than triple our revenue over the next decade by expanding into new products, distribution channels, and customer experiences. Technology & Transformation plays a central role in enabling this growth. Our infrastructure strategy is evolving from traditional operations to a scalable, cloud‑enabled, and intelligent platform that can support exponential growth, resilience, and innovation. The Senior Telecom Engineer – Transformation & Change role exists to lead the modernization of enterprise telephony, unified communications, and contact center platforms, transitioning from legacy on‑prem solutions to standardized, cloud‑aligned architectures (UCaaS / CCaaS). This role is focused on engineering and delivery of change. This role is accountable for defining, engineering, and evolving enterprise telecom and contact center capabilities, including architecture design, platform modernization, and lifecycle evolution across UCaaS and CCaaS environments. The engineer owns execution for major changes such as legacy PBX modernization, UCaaS/CCaaS adoption, carrier and SBC transitions, and call center platform evolution. The Senior Telecom Engineer partners closely with Network, Security, Cloud, Desktop, and Business stakeholders to ensure telecom solutions are secure, resilient, compliant, and production‑ready before handoff to operation teams. Responsibilities Own the telecom and contact center platform strategy, architecture, and lifecycle aligned to enterprise growth and customer experience objectives. Treat telecom and contact center capabilities as enterprise platforms, enabling scalable, reusable, and standardized communication services across the organization. Lead telecom and contact center transformation initiatives, owning architecture, technical design, and execution approach for major platform changes working closely with the project manager. Own and lead telecom infrastructure modernization initiatives, including roadmap development, target‑state architecture, and phased migration plans from legacy telephony to UCaaS/CCaaS. Reduce operational dependency through automation, design simplification, and platform standardization. Design future‑state call routing, dial plan, IVR, and contact center capabilities that improve self‑service, agent efficiency, and customer experience outcomes. Architect and manage SIP, SBC, carrier connectivity, and number lifecycle (DID provisioning, porting, inventory governance, and decommissioning) to support modernization and cost optimization. Provide engineering leadership and direction to managed service partners responsible for UCaaS and CCaaS RUN operations, ensuring alignment to standards, performance expectations, and continuous improvement. Ensure voice quality, reliability, and resiliency through end‑to‑end QoS design, monitoring, and capacity planning, coordinating with network modernization efforts (e.g., SD‑WAN/WAN upgrades) as needed. Partner with Network and Security teams to implement secure voice architectures (segmentation, encryption where applicable, identity/access controls), toll‑fraud prevention, and compliance‑aligned logging and retention. Provide Tier‑3 escalation support for complex issues, focusing on root cause elimination and systemic improvement. Define and maintain telecom standards, documentation, reference architectures, and call flow designs to ensure consistency and scalability. Establish telecom observability using call quality analytics and monitoring tools; define and track service levels/SLOs, availability, and customer‑impacting metrics. Partner with business, contact center, and data teams to translate customer experience and workforce goals into AI‑enabled telecom solutions. Lead the design and implementation of AI‑enabled capabilities within UCaaS and CCaaS platforms to improve customer experience, agent efficiency, and operational insight. Establish standards, governance, and guardrails for AI usage within telecom platforms, including explainability, auditability, and operational support readiness. Ensure AI implementations comply with security, privacy, regulatory, and legal requirements, including call recording retention, data residency, and restrictions on model training using customer data. Lead platform lifecycle and transformation activities including upgrades, migrations/cutovers, change control, and legacy system decommissioning with minimal business disruption. Develop and maintain telecom standards, reference architectures, documentation, call flow diagrams, and operational runbooks to support consistent delivery and supportability. Coordinate with vendors, carriers, and service providers for service delivery and escalations; contribute to RFPs, contract/SLA governance, and ongoing cost optimization. Mentor junior engineers and provide hands‑on technical leadership across modernization initiatives, ensuring clear communication, stakeholder alignment, and knowledge transfer. Qualifications 7–10+ years of experience supporting enterprise telephony and unified communications platforms. Experience in design and deploy AI features from telecom vendors and cloud providers (e.g., CCaaS native AI, cloud AI services) as part of platform modernization initiatives. Strong knowledge of VoIP/SIP, call routing, dial plans, SBCs, and contact center technologies, with experience modernizing legacy voice environments. Experience delivering modern UCaaS (MS Teams) and CCaaS solutions (selection, integration, migration, and cutover), plus enterprise carrier services and number management. Strong troubleshooting, documentation, and cross‑team communication skills, with the ability to lead technical changes through planning, testing, and stakeholder coordination. Experience working in regulated or enterprise environments is preferred. Translate complex technical designs into clear, executive‑level communication when required. What’s in it for you? The expected hiring compensation range for this position is $127,500 - $175,350 annually. This is a hybrid opportunity working in Frederick, MD. The total compensation package for this position may include other elements, such as a sign‑on bonus, long‑term incentives, and annual bonuses. This role is eligible to participate in the Annual Incentive Plan. The current target payment for the position is 20% of base salary, modified for corporate and individual performance. Bonuses are pro‑rated based on start date. This role has 20 vacation days and 10 sick days that are accrued on a bi‑weekly basis. Employees also have 9 paid holidays throughout the calendar year. We have a competitive compensation and benefits package focused on your overall wellbeing. Employee benefits include health, life, and dental insurance; 401K with company match up to 6% as well as a pension package; generous time off; and wellbeing initiatives throughout the year (we like doing fun stuff). We’re big on professional development and we’ll support and mentor you in your career progression and expect you to help us pay it forward by helping us develop tomorrow's leaders and growth‑focused professionals. We value our teams and our communities and believe in giving back. Enjoy time off to volunteer for those causes that matter most to you! If hired, employee will be in an “at‑will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. The Company reserves the right to change benefits plans at any time. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation. #J-18808-Ljbffr Banner Life family of companies