Lead Software Engineer

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

As a Lead Software Engineer supporting the Claims organization, you will provide technical leadership and hands-on engineering expertise to deliver scalable, secure, and maintainable enterprise solutions in a cloud-first environment. You will help define technical direction, guide engineering execution, and strengthen development practices across modern .NET, Azure, and AI-enabled solutions.

You will champion engineering discipline by establishing coding standards, applying sound architectural principles, leading thoughtful code reviews, and mentoring engineers in modern development practices. This role will also help evaluate and integrate AI-enabled capabilities where appropriate, with Azure AI experience considered a strong plus rather than a core requirement.

The Claims organization plays a critical role in delivering fair, responsive, and consistent outcomes for customers, claimants, agents, and business partners. Claims is focused on strengthening core execution, improving workflow discipline, increasing automation, and using trusted data and technology to support better decision-making and a more efficient claim experience.

This role will support that transformation by helping modernize Claims technology, improve the Claims ecosystem, enable cloud-ready solutions, and build high-quality software practices that allow the organization to scale, adapt, and deliver measurable business value.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of cloud-native, full-stack applications using .NET and Azure, with a focus on scalability, performance, resiliency, and maintainability.
• Establish and promote coding standards, reusable design patterns, technical guidance, and engineering best practices across software delivery teams.
• Champion automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, secure coding practices, and high-quality technical documentation.
• Evaluate and support AI-enabled capabilities, including Azure AI Services where appropriate, to improve automation, intelligent guidance, decision support, and operational efficiency within Claims.
• Conduct code reviews, provide constructive technical feedback, and mentor engineers in cloud-native architecture, AI integration, agile delivery, and modern software engineering practices.
• Partner with product, QA, architecture, security, operations, and business stakeholders to clarify requirements, refine technical solutions, and deliver business-aligned capabilities for Claims.
• Continuously evaluate emerging technologies, tools, and delivery practices that can improve engineering productivity, software quality, reliability, and security.
• Ensure solutions meet enterprise standards for quality, performance, observability, security, compliance, and operational support.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline; advanced degree preferred.
• 7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, including technical leadership or architecture responsibilities.
• Deep experience with .NET technologies, including C#, ASP.NET Core, Web APIs, dependency injection, asynchronous programming, application configuration, logging, and modern integration patterns.
• Strong understanding of modern software frameworks, reusable libraries, design patterns, domain-driven concepts, API-first development, and clean architecture principles.
• Strong working knowledge of Azure cloud services and cloud-native architecture, with the ability to design secure, scalable, observable, and resilient application components.
• Experience designing microservices, REST or GraphQL APIs, event-driven systems, and containerized applications using Docker or Kubernetes.
• Proficiency with DevOps practices, including CI/CD, YAML pipelines, automated testing, Infrastructure as Code, release automation, source control strategy, and environment management.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct effective code reviews, improve engineering quality, solve complex technical problems, and mentor software engineers in modern development practices.
• Ability to evaluate AI-enabled use cases and collaborate with architecture, data, and product teams to integrate AI capabilities responsibly into enterprise business applications.
• Familiarity with business process management platforms, especially Pega, is a plus.
• Experience in regulated industries, particularly Property and Casualty insurance or Claims operations, is preferred.

Preferrd Qualifications:

• Experience with Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning, or similar AI platforms.
• Experience integrating AI-enabled capabilities through REST APIs, SDKs, prompt orchestration, or platform services.
• Experience with Python or familiarity with machine learning and deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• Hands-on experience with BPM platforms, with Pega experience preferred.
• Experience with front-end frameworks, preferably Angular or React.
• Advanced SQL skills and experience with data streaming or messaging technologies, preferably Kafka, Azure Service Bus, Event Hubs, or RabbitMQ.
• Knowledge of data privacy, compliance, governance, and security considerations for cloud and AI adoption.

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 $130,000.00 - USD $176,000.00 /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.