Head of Application Development

This position reports to the VP & CIO and leads the software engineering, software architecture, and application development efforts across all of Arbella’s business areas. The Head of Application Development is a senior level IT role and part of the senior leadership team. This role provides leadership, vision and direction for the Application Development organization. This position is responsible for recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, as well as ensuring the Application Development staff has the skills and capabilities to meet business needs. This leader oversees the implementation of large, strategic software engineering initiatives, ongoing maintenance, and enhancement of existing applications, and is responsible for championing best practices and ensuring initiatives achieve business outcomes.

The Head of Application Development serves as a strategic leader and trusted advisor to business units across the company exhibiting a strength in building collaborative, effective partnerships with key stakeholders. This position requires strong leadership skills, a high degree of collaboration, and excellent communication skills.

Leadership & Strategy

• Provide leadership, vision, and direction for the Application Development organization. Establish a roadmap for Application Development and partners with the CIO on the development of the company’s IT strategy and operating plan as well as building a multi-year road map identifying key operational initiatives to support business growth and create operating efficiencies.
• Act as a trusted advisor. Build strong working relationships with business & executive leaders to ensure application development teams meet expectations and contribute to the achievement of business goals. Understand their businesses and advise them on technology needs.
• Collaborate with IT and business leaders to develop short- and long-term strategic plans.
• Maintain a strong understanding of industry and business needs, respond with agility to changing business priorities, assist clients in the formation of IT strategies and service level agreements.
• Partner closely with all members of the IT Leadership Team on strategic and operational initiatives, driving results and proactively communicating on progress and direction of key IT projects. Direct the development and implementation of IT policies, processes, systems, project management, development standards and methodologies.
• Manage the Application Development budget, with ongoing focus on personnel, vendor, and capital expenditures.
• Establish departmental performance goals, objectives, and operating procedures with KPIs that produce measurable results for the IT functions and services

Talent & People Management

• Develop workforce strategy to meet the organization’s current and future software engineering needs through developing, hiring, and/or sourcing talent.
• Manage resource allocation across teams to maximize business impact of resources and ensure each team has the skills and capabilities needed to achieve its objectives.
• Develop and manage talent that is supportive of a culture that is energized, engaged, future focused and highly motivated to deliver best-in‑class solutions.
• Partner with Human Resources to create learning and development opportunities aligned to the organization’s skill and capability needs, and to provide rewarding career paths for software engineering staff.
• Recruit and hire talent to address new needs and skill gaps.
• Facilitate collaboration and partnership across software engineering teams and stakeholders.
• Build a culture that supports learning, collaboration, transparency, and inclusiveness.
• Communicate delivery expectations to internal and external team members. Assess individual contributions and provide consistent and clear feedback on performance to the teams against goals and objectives.

Oversight Responsibilities

• Champion best practices and modern software development methods and tools.
• Lead application development teams and other stakeholders to set goals for improving code quality, maintainability, security, and scalability. Monitor progress against these goals.
• Implement and manage application development status reporting, metrics, and benchmarks.
• Manage collaboration with Infrastructure to ensure software performs well in production and meets SLAs.
• Work with the Director of Information Security to ensure software is effectively secured and that risks are mitigated.
• Oversee management of relationships with consultants, vendors, and contractors and support negotiation of statements of work and business terms with suppliers. Maintain awareness of contractual obligations and expectations of vendors and the organization. Seek opportunities to leverage partnerships for sourcing and innovation.
• In collaboration with Infrastructure leaders, oversee DevOps processes and practices, including automating the handoff of code releases from development to operations.
• Ensure data is consistent, accurate, and accessible for regulatory and business purposes.
• Report regularly to the CIO and leadership team on the status and performance of technology strategies and initiatives, new innovations, and progress against goals relative to the strategic plan.

Required Experience

• Demonstrated success as a senior IT and business leader.
• Strong talent management skills including talent development, coaching, mentoring, and team motivation. Proven ability to recruit, retain and develop high performing teams with high employee engagement and job satisfaction.
• Strong relationship management, strategy development, project management, problem solving and change management skills.
• Ability to build and maintain strong cross-functional partnerships at all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical information in a condensed manner to various stakeholders verbally and in writing.
• Strong organizational skills, including an ability to perform under pressure and manage multiple priorities with competing demands for resources.
• Strong understanding of software development methodologies and best practices.
• Understanding relevant tools and platforms (e.g. cloud platforms, SaaS, web technologies, client-server technologies, continuous integration and deployment), with an eagerness to learn about new and unfamiliar technologies such as artificial intelligence.
• Adaptability and ability to manage rapid change in business needs, processes, or technologies.
• Ability to manage multiple vendor relationships, to ensure the best financial return and value on initial investment and continued maintenance.
• Experience in developing multi-million-dollar departmental and organizational budgets and effectively planning and managing activities within the established constraints of such approved budgets.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in insurance or related financial services
• Experience leading geographically distributed teams
• Experience leading diverse technologies for a moderate/large IT department (100+ FTE).
• Experience with Generative Artificial Intelligence and integration of this technology into software engineering processes
• Experience leading software or enterprise architecture functions is a plus
• Bachelor’s degree in information systems, computer science or a related field. Master’s degree in one of these fields or an MBA

Our current reasonable and good faith estimate of the annual base for this position is approximately $225,000 - $275,000* based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant skills and experience, educational background and certifications, performance and qualifications, market demand for the role and other organizational needs. *Certain roles may pay higher in the salary range due to technical/specialty skills and experience.

Please note: The advertised pay range is not a guarantee or promise of a specific wage.

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