Observability & Middleware Platforms Engineering Leader (Hybrid)

*At Securian Financial the internal position title is Infrastructure Sr Mgr.*


Mission Statement

The Observability & Middleware Platforms team within the Platform & Reliability Engineering organization empowers Securian's technology ecosystem by delivering reliable, scalable, and automated enterprise platforms. This team designs and delivers foundational capabilities which enable application hosting, integrations, messaging, mainframe, and deep observability insight across our technology landscape. Our mission includes ensuring all systems and applications are observable, performant, and ready to meet the needs of our customers and business.

Role Purpose / Charter

The Observability & Middleware Platform Engineering Leader is responsible for engineering and evolving Securian's middleware technologies, mainframe, and observability backbone. This role leads a team of Engineers in defining and delivering on roadmaps for application hosting and runtime (e.g. Tomcat EC2 product and other Linux-based OS and apps, distributed batch environment), integrations and messaging (e.g. MQ, SQS, managed file transfer), mainframe, API platforms (Kong, Layer7), and enterprise observability platforms for logs, metrics, tracing, correlation, AIOps, FinOps, etc. This leader ensures these technologies are well engineered, automated, optimized, and meet the needs of IT Operations and Technology Services teams, other teams in Platform & Reliability Engineering, Enterprise Cybersecurity, and application engineering teams throughout Enterprise Technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, engineering, and growth of enterprise observability and AIOps capabilities, ensuring integrated telemetry across logs, metrics, traces, and events is automated and easy to adopt for all application and team needs.
• Drive adoption of standardized instrumentation (e.g., OpenTelemetry) across infrastructure and application services.
• Partner with other Engineering teams in Platform & Reliability Engineering to ensure seamless integration of observability into all technology platforms and capabilities.
• Provide visibility into platform health, performance, and maturity through dashboards, KPIs, and executive reporting. Partner with IT Operations and Technology Services to ensure observability meets needs for operating and effectively running our IT environments.
• Lead the engineering and modernization of middleware solutions, including Workload Automation, Job Scheduling, Managed File Transfer (MFT), MQ, Tomcat on EC2 pattern, and other Linux & EC2 based applications and infrastructure.
• Lead the engineering and modernization of our API platforms - Kong and Layer7.
• Own the lifecycle management, integration, and reliability of the mainframe platform (IBM z/OS). Drive modernization of these mainframe technologies in partnership with ET market teams and our business.
• Provide Level 3 support and expertise, supporting escalations from our Operations Level 1 and Level 2 teams.
• Ensure compliance, security, and resilience are built into all platform services.
• Lead a team of Engineers. Develop and mentor engineering associates to mature automation, platform operations, and observability practices.
• Continuously improve platform efficiency, cost optimization, and scalability. Manage the budget and licensing for all technologies in scope of the role.

Required Capabilities & Skills

• Demonstrated leadership skills in team development, collaboration and communication with leadership peers and executives, prioritization of team work, managing sizable technology budgets, and managing relationships with current and new technology vendors.
• Expertise in middleware, application hosting, integrations, messaging, and API capabilities.
• Deep expertise in observability platforms (AIOps, logs, metrics, traces, correlation pipelines, OpenTelemetry, Dynatrace, Grafana, Prometheus).
• Strong grounding in infrastructure automation (IaC, Python, Terraform/CloudFormation, TypeScript, configuration management).
• Knowledge of mainframe (z/OS) systems, integration, and lifecycle. Knowledge of leveraging AI and automation towards modernizing off a mainframe.
• Proven ability to manage large-scale infrastructure services with reliability and compliance requirements.
• Strong problem-solving, root-cause analysis, and continuous improvement mindset.

#LI-hybrid **This position will be in a hybrid working arrangement.**

Securian Financial believes in hybrid work as an integral part of our culture. Associates get the benefit of working both virtually and in our offices. If you're in a commutable distance (90 minutes) you'll join us 3 days each week in our offices to collaborate and build relationships. Our policy allows flexibility for the reality of business and personal schedules.

Preferred Skills:
Application Hosting, Automation, Cloud Native, Linux, Python (Programming Language)

The estimated base pay range for this job is:

$131,400.00 - $243,800.00

Pay may vary depending on job-related factors and individual experience, skills, knowledge, etc. More information on base pay and incentive pay (if applicable) can be discussed with a member of the Securian Financial Talent Acquisition team.

Be you. With us. At Securian Financial, we understand that attracting top talent means offering more than just a job - it means providing a rewarding and fulfilling career. As a valued member of our high-performing team, we want you to connect with your work, your relationships and your community. Enjoy our comprehensive range of benefits designed to enhance your professional growth, well-being and work-life balance, including the advantages listed here:

Paid time off:

• We want you to take time off for what matters most to you. Our PTO program provides flexibility for associates to take meaningful time away from work to relax, recharge and spend time doing what's important to them. And Securian Financial rewards associates for their service by providing additional PTO the longer you stay at Securian.
• Leave programs: Securian's flexible leave programs allow time off from work for parental leave, caregiver leave for family members, bereavement and military leave.
• Holidays: Securian provides nine company paid holidays.

Company-funded pension plan and a 401(k) retirement plan: Share in the success of our company. Securian's 401(k) company contribution is tied to our performance up to 10 percent of eligible earnings, with a target of 5 percent. The amount is based on company results compared to goals related to earnings, sales and service.

Health insurance: From the first day of employment, associates and their eligible family members - including spouses, domestic partners and children - are eligible for medical, dental and vision coverage.

Volunteer time: We know the importance of community. Through company-sponsored events, volunteer paid time off, a dollar-for-dollar matching gift program and more, we encourage you to support organizations important to you.

Associate Resource Groups: Build connections, be yourself and develop meaningful relationships at work through associate-led ARGs. Dedicated groups focus on a variety of interests and affinities, including:

• Mental Wellness and Disability
• Pride at Securian Financial
• Securian Young Professionals Network
• Securian Multicultural Network
• Securian Women and Allies Network
• Servicemember Associate Resource Group

For more information regarding Securian's benefits, please review our Benefits page.

This information is not intended to explain all the provisions of coverage available under these plans. In all cases, the plan document dictates coverage and provisions.

Securian Financial Group, Inc. does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital or familial status, pregnancy, disability, genetic information, political affiliation, veteran status, status in regard to public assistance or any other protected status. If you are a job seeker with a disability and require an accommodation to apply for one of our jobs, please contact us by email at View email address on click.appcast.io, by telephone View phone number on click.appcast.io (voice), or 711 (Relay/TTY).

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