Director Claims Software Engineering

About Us

At Selective, we don't just insure uniquely, we employ uniqueness.

Selective is a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years. Selective's unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice is recognized in a wide variety of awards and honors, including listing in Forbes Best Midsize Employers in 2025 and certification as a Great Place to Work® in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year.

Employees are empowered and encouraged to Be Uniquely You by being their true, unique selves and contributing their diverse talents, experiences, and perspectives to our shared success. Together, we are a high-performing team working to serve our customers responsibly by helping to mitigate loss, keep them safe, and restore their lives and businesses after an insured loss occurs.

Overview

Selective Insurance is seeking a Director of Claims Software Engineering to lead the delivery and ongoing support of complex, strategically important software solutions. This leader will oversee Software Engineers and Team Leads, align technology solutions with business and customer needs, and provide hands-on technical leadership across new initiatives, enhancements, modernization, and production support. The Director will serve as a trusted escalation point when teams encounter difficult engineering challenges, helping clarify options, evaluate tradeoffs, and determine the appropriate path forward. Success in this role requires a leader who can develop people, influence across the organization, and provide credible technical guidance in a complex enterprise environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio of Claims business applications and engineering initiatives, balancing delivery commitments, operational stability, modernization, and technical debt reduction.
• Provide technical direction across solution architecture, application design, integrations, data, security, performance, scalability, resiliency, and production support.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for engineering teams, helping diagnose complex issues, evaluate tradeoffs, remove technical roadblocks, and determine clear next steps.
• Provide leadership for Azure cloud-based solutions, including cloud architecture, migration, platform services, cost management, governance, security, resiliency, and operational support.
• Partner with business and IT leaders, including teams outside of Claims IT, to understand objectives, requirements, costs, risks, dependencies, and timelines and translate them into scalable technology solutions.
• Work closely with Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure, Security, Data, Digital, and other technology teams to ensure cross-functional solutions align with strategic roadmaps, standards, and target-state architecture.
• Establish and reinforce engineering standards, including design and code quality, testing, observability, documentation, security, DevOps, and release practices.
• Lead architecture and design reviews for high-impact solutions and ensure key technical decisions are documented, communicated, and understood.
• Guide teams through production incidents and recurring technology issues, ensuring effective root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and long-term remediation.
• Forecast and allocate team capacity across initiatives, support work, and technical priorities while managing competing demands.
• Own delivery performance across scope, schedule, budget, quality, and risk, and communicate progress and decisions clearly to stakeholders.
• Define and report meaningful engineering and delivery metrics, including capacity, quality, defects, reliability, productivity, and efficiency.
• Recruit, lead, coach, and develop managers, team leads, engineers, and consulting partners while building a culture of accountability, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Mentor technical leaders and engineers, strengthen technical decision-making across teams, and create development opportunities that support career growth.
• Participate in the evaluation, selection, acquisition, and implementation of vendor software and engineering tools that support business and technology objectives.
• Drive well-planned quality improvement and modernization initiatives that improve maintainability, resilience, operational efficiency, and customer outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Engineering, Business, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience will be considered.
• Extensive hands-on software engineering experience with modern application development technologies, frameworks, web-based solutions, and enterprise architectural patterns.
• Proven experience leading software engineering teams and developing managers, team leads, and engineers in a complex enterprise environment.
• Demonstrated ability to act as a senior technical escalation point, guide teams through ambiguous or high-risk engineering challenges, and establish clear next steps.
• Deep understanding of software architecture, design patterns, service and API design, integration frameworks, security principles, data considerations, and modern engineering practices.
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs across applications, integrations, infrastructure, data, security, performance, scalability, and operational support.
• Experience establishing and governing engineering standards, architecture and design reviews, code quality practices, automated testing, observability, DevOps, and production readiness.
• Experience leading large-scale application modernization efforts, including the reduction of technical debt while balancing business priorities and delivery commitments.
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Azure cloud services and practices, including cloud-native application design, migration patterns, identity and access management, networking, monitoring, security, cost optimization, and cloud governance.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and operationalizing AI and GenAI capabilities within enterprise applications, moving beyond pilots to reliable and measurable production outcomes.
• Experience with business process management platforms; Pega experience is preferred.
• Experience managing employees and onsite and offshore consulting partners, including workforce planning, performance management, hiring, and talent development.
• Proven leadership ability to influence technical direction, build alignment across business and technology organizations, and lead teams through complex technical and organizational challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to establish trusted partnerships and drive outcomes across Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure, Security, Data, Digital, and other organizations outside of Claims Technology.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical topics, facilitate decisions, and deliver compelling presentations to technical and executive audiences.
• Strong ability to manage multiple initiatives, competing priorities, risks, dependencies, and timelines.
• Experience in Property & Casualty insurance is a plus.

Total Rewards

Selective Insurance offers a total rewards package that includes a competitive base salary, incentive plan eligibility at all levels, and a wide array of benefits designed to help you and your family stay healthy, achieve your financial goals, and balance the demands of your work and personal life. These benefits include comprehensive health care plans, retirement savings plan with company match, discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program, tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, and 20 days of paid time off. Additional details about our total rewards package can be found by visiting our benefits page.

The actual base salary is based on geographic location, and the range is representative of salaries for this role throughout Selective's footprint. Additional considerations include relevant education, qualifications, experience, skills, performance, and business needs.

Pay Range

USD $163,000.00 - USD $220,000.00 /Yr.
Additional Information

Selective is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. That means we respect and value every individual’s unique opinions, beliefs, abilities, and perspectives. We are committed to promoting a welcoming culture that celebrates diverse talent, individual identity, different points of view and experiences – and empowers employees to contribute new ideas that support our continued and growing success. Building a highly engaged team is one of our core strategic imperatives, which we believe is enhanced by diversity, equity, and inclusion. We expect and encourage all employees and all of our business partners to embrace, practice, and monitor the attitudes, values, and goals of acceptance; address biases; and foster diversity of viewpoints and opinions.

For Massachusetts Applicants

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.