Distribution Technology Manager

At American Equity we offer leading annuity products that help empower our clients to fulfill their needs and wants in retirement. Our success comes from hiring high-energy individuals who embody the beliefs that drive our unique culture. We currently fund over half a million retirements nationwide, and have been headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, for over twenty-five years with satellite offices in Charlotte, NC and New York, NY.

GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE JOB:  

The Manager, Distribution Technology is responsible for leading a high-performing technical team that supports our CRM and Sales Technologies for our distribution channels.  This person will lead a team of Salesforce Developers and Administrators, Business Analyst and Quality Assurance Analyst to engineer solutions for complex business problems on the Salesforce platform.  The Manager of Distribution Technology is involved in setting strategic direction to establish near term goals for area of responsibility, closely align with senior management to which involves negotiating or influencing on large and small roadmap initiatives.

**Position sits in West Des Moines and will work an onsite hybrid schedule**

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Leads a dynamic team of skilled Salesforce developers and Administrators dedicated to developing, enhancing, and maintaining critical systems that support a core product for our business.

• Drive technical excellence within the team, ensuring best practices are followed in application development, particularly in Salesforce environments.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand business requirements and translate them into scalable and efficient technical solutions.

• Accountable for the implementation of a technical roadmap for automation team(s) supporting the Business Functions requiring effective partnerships with function teams and a variety of the IT staff, including but not limited to direct reports, other IS managers, IT leadership, business units and business partners.  

• Leads a diverse team of employees with responsibility for managing the employee life cycle and experience, including but not limited to, selection and retention of talent, continuous feedback and performance management, reward and recognition, corrective action and employee development; leads new hire orientation and onboarding experiences for new employees. 

• Collaborates with IS Operations to maintains the production technical environments to ensure system quality and availability and performance expectations for customers. 

• Partners with IT leaders to help implement employee engagement strategies; collaborates with other IS managers and IT leadership to identify learning initiatives and implement training programs based on the initiatives.   

• Ensures the proper utilization of all team members to promote the team approach for employee allocation and problem resolution. 

• Communicates and coordinates process, procedure and expectation additions/changes to employees that align with corporate strategy. 

• Establishes and monitors metrics for performance oversight and processes improvement. 

• Accountable for prudent management of departmental expenses by establishing and monitoring a department budget in accordance with corporate guidelines. 

• Remains current on technological advances, emerging trends and applicable laws, rules and regulations impacting the business. 

• Performs other related work as assigned. 

Distribution specific accountabilities:

• Works with Distribution leadership to help drive automation and analytical needs to drive toward their short term and long-term goals. 

• Engages with Vendor leadership (including but not limited to Salesforce) to leverage new capabilities for the Distribution. 

• Leads the implementation and maximizing Salesforce capabilities and analytical capabilities across Distribution 

• Leads data usage (propensity models) for Distribution. 

• Partners with senior leadership on the distribution channels. 

• Leads usage of Salesforce modules with other business partners (like HR/PMO around OKR tracking. 

• Serves as Distribution centric leadership voice inside IT. 

• Demonstrates a passion to be knowledgeable of what trends are happening outside the company. 

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Direct Reports:Around 6 direct reports including Application Developers, Quality Assurance, and Salesforce Admins. 

Indirect Reports:None. 

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE: 

Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) in MIS, information technology, or related field of study; plus five (5) years of progressively responsible related technical information systems experience; or equivalent combination of education and/or experience. 

Minimum of three (3) year of prior supervisory experience required. 

Prior experience in an Agile environment preferred. 

Minimum of three (3) year's experience developing, administration and/or implementation solutions on the Salesforce platform such as Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud. 

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATIONS: None required for this position. 

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:   

• Strong understanding of Agile principles and Scrum Framework

• Experience with Atlassian tools such as Jira and Confluence

• Strong software development/programming expertise, including knowledge of emerging technical innovations and best practices. 

• Broad knowledge of information technology functions and disciplines, including but not limited to, architecture, data management, operations, security and business analysis. 

• Knowledge of the financial risks and best practices applicable to information systems supporting investments and financial systems. 

• Ability to lead software development efforts in a dynamically changing environment. 

• Knowledge of vendor management. 

• Ability to mentor and build strong teams. 

• Strong customer service orientation. 

• Strong stakeholder management skills. 

• Effective verbal and written communication skills. 

• Ability to work cooperatively and successfully with employees, customers, and other outside third parties. 

• Strong organizational and planning skills. 

• Strong problem solving, risk assessment, and risk management skills. 

• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office Suite. 

• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions.  

• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals and technical/operational procedures. 

• Ability to successfully handle pressure and meet deadlines in a fast-paced work environment. 

This description covers the major purpose and essential functions of the job.  It is not intended to give all details or a step-by-step account of the way each task is to be performed.  Employees may receive other job related instructions and be required to perform other job related work requested by their manager.  All requirements are subject to possible modification to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities.

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