Director, IT

What part will you play? If you’re looking for a place where you can make a meaningful difference, you’ve found it.The work we do at Markel gives people the confidence to move forward and seize opportunities, and you’ll find your fit amongst our global community of optimists and problem-solvers. We’re always pushing each other to go further because we believe that when we realize our potential, we can help others reach theirs. Join us and play your part in something special! Markel is hiring an IT Director to lead the full stack development teams behind our Wholesale and Specialty policy administration platform — the core system our underwriters use to quote, issue, and service commercial insurance policies. It is a large, actively developed application built on the Microsoft technology stack, and it sits at the center of how this part of our business operates.This position is responsible for managing multiple teams of IT employees possessing varied experience levels, leading them through the design, development, and delivery of new capabilities on the platform. This position participates in the planning and managing of activities within the assigned business unit/area. No prior insurance systems experience is required but is preferred - a strong engineering leader who is curious about the business will be successful hereResponsibilitiesContributes to strategic, operational, and divisional goals as a member of the management team.Tracks team delivery, provides project update/information, and informs management of any deviations which may impact the delivery.Plans and conducts performance appraisals for employees, and administers disciplinary action.Initiates discussions around raises, bonuses, and promotions within team.Involved with recruitment, development, retention, and organization of all managed staff in accordance with corporate budgetary and policy requirements, including offshore resources.Defines team operating standards and ensures essential procedures are followed at all times.Trains, coaches, and mentors employees on the team.Identify and measure team health indicators.Ensure proper team focus on priorities, milestones, and deliverables.Responsible for tracking and reporting key metrics and status updates to senior management.Represents the engineering team to business stakeholders, customers, and other internal delivery teams.Leads the design, build, and delivery of application components across the full stack — user interface, APIs and services, business logic, and data persistence — on the Microsoft technology stack.Owns engineering practices for the team, including CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality standards, environment and release management, and production support.Partners with product owners and business partners to translate business needs into working software, and builds the team's understanding of the insurance processes the platform supports.Ensures reliable integration between this platform and the surrounding systems it exchanges data with, including billing, claims, document generation, and enterprise reporting.Manage one or more teams as assigned, balancing workload and priorities across teams.Participates in production support escalation and is occasionally required to work late evenings and weekends as needed.Work Experience8 to 10 years of software development, infrastructure, or project delivery experience, including full stack application development.Hands-on experience with the Microsoft technology stack, including C#/.NET (.NET Core / .NET 6+), ASP.NET, REST APIs, and SQL Server.Experience delivering and operating applications in Microsoft Azure (for example App Services, Functions, Azure SQL, storage, and messaging).Experience with modern CI/CD practices and tooling, preferably Azure DevOps and/or GitHub, including automated build, test, and release pipelines.Experience with modern front-end development (for example Angular, React, or Blazor).Experience with agile software development methodologies.Experience managing multiple teams strongly preferred.Providing coaching and mentoring to team members.Capable of balancing immediate operational needs while making progress towards long-term engineering goals.Experience leading teams that support a large, long-lived business-critical application is strongly preferred. Insurance or financial services experience is a plus but not required.Practical experience applying AI-assisted development tooling and AI capabilities within an application engineering context.SkillsetStrong knowledge of technologies and methodologies related to assigned business unit/area.Skilled in organizing resources and establishing priorities.Strong analytical and problem solving skills.Ability to successfully gather technical information and transform into clear and concise communication material.Strong desire for continuous improvement.Ability to effectively lead, coach, and develop staff across multiple teams.Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills. Ability to interact with all levels of Markel's internal and external business partners.Ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects, attention to detail, sensitivity to time management and deadlines.Displays confidence when working with and convincing all levels of employees.Ability to lead effectively in a busy, fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.Willingness to learn a complex business domain and translate it into technical direction for the team.Working knowledge of application architecture patterns, secure coding practices, and technical debt management in a long-lived business-critical system.Working knowledge of AI tools and techniques and the ability to apply them to software engineering and delivery problems.EducationBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, other related field, or equivalent work experience, including military experience.US Work AuthorizationUS Work Authorization required. Markel does not provide visa sponsorship for this position, now or in the future.Pay information:The salary range for this position is $152,600.00 - $318,000.00. The posted salary range reflects the lowest and highest base salary applicable to this role across our U.S. locations. Individual offers are determined based on geographic location, experience, qualifications, internal equity, and other job-related factors. As a result, the salary offered for a specific location will fall within a narrower range than the overall range displayed in this posting. This position may also be eligible to participate in the Company's annual incentive plan.Who we are: Markel Group (NYSE – MKL) a fortune 500 company with over 60 offices in 20+ countries, is a holding company for insurance, reinsurance, specialist advisory and investment operations around the world. We’re all about people | We win together | We strive for better We enjoy the everyday | We think further What’s in it for you: In keeping with the values of the Markel Style, we strive to support our employees in living their lives to the fullest at home and at work.  We offer competitive benefit programs that help meet our diverse and changing environment as well as support our employees’ needs at all stages of life.  All full-time employees have the option to select from multiple health, dental and vision insurance plan options and optional life, disability, and AD&D insurance.  We also offer a 401(k) with employer match contributions, an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, PTO, corporate holidays and floating holidays, parental leave.   Are you ready to play your part? Choose ‘Apply Now’ to fill out our short application, so that we can find out more about you. Caution: Employment scams Markel is aware of employment-related scams where scammers will impersonate recruiters by sending fake job offers to those actively seeking employment in order to steal personal information. Frequently, the scammer will reach out to individuals who have posted their resume online. These "job offers" include convincing offer letters and frequently ask for confidential personal information. Therefore, for your safety, please note that: All legitimate job postings with Markel will be posted on Markel Careers. No other URL should be trusted for job postings.All legitimate communications with Markel recruiters will come from Markel.com email addresses. We would also ask that you please report any job employment scams related to Markel to View email address on click.appcast.io. Markel is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate or allow discrimination on the basis of any protected characteristic. This includes race; color; sex; religion; creed; national origin or place of birth; ancestry; age; disability; affectional or sexual orientation; gender expression or identity; genetic information, sickle cell trait, or atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait; refusal to submit to genetic tests or make genetic test results available; medical condition; citizenship status; pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; marital status, civil union status, domestic partnership status, familial status, or family responsibilities; military or veteran status, including unfavorable discharge from military service; personal appearance, height, or weight; matriculation or political affiliation; expunged juvenile records; arrest and court records where prohibited by applicable law; status as a victim of domestic or sexual violence; public assistance status; order of protection status; status as a smoker or nonsmoker; membership or activity in local commissions; the use or nonuse of lawful products off employer premises during non-work hours; declining to attend meetings or participate in communications about religious or political matters; or any other classification protected by applicable law.  Should you require any accommodation through the application process, please send an e-mail to the View email address on click.appcast.io. No agencies please.SummaryLocation: Richmond, VAType: Full time