Full-Time

Principal Engineer

Thrivent

Thrivent

5,001-10,000 employees

Financial services for individuals and communities

Compensation Overview

$161.4k - $218.4k/yr

+ Bonus + Long-term incentives

Remote in USA

Remote

Bachelor's, Master's

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
Incident Response
Observability
DevOps

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Requirements
  • A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or another technical field, or equivalent work experience, is required.
  • At least 10 years of experience in an engineering role is required.
  • At least 5 years of experience leading high-performing technology teams is required.
  • A proven record of establishing architecture, standards, and reusable patterns for customer-facing digital experience channels is required, including areas such as web, mobile, content management, digital asset management, experimentation, observability, or developer experience capabilities.
  • Demonstrated ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences is required.
  • Demonstrated participation and leadership in the broader technology community is required.
  • The candidate must meet or exceed all expectations of a Lead Engineer role.
Responsibilities
  • Apply expert industry knowledge and broad understanding of multiple disciplines, with technical focus on content management, digital delivery, experimentation, mobile and web application engineering, observability and analytics, and developer experience.
  • Articulate how components interact across product groups and how architectural choices improve delivery speed, quality, reliability, and customer outcomes, including cross-channel solution designs and architecture for Customized Experience Platform capabilities.
  • Work and solve problems independently on initiatives aligned with the broader software engineering strategy.
  • Use application and system data and past experience to solve complex customer problems and inform decision-making.
  • Develop the most architecturally impactful components of solutions as a technical leader.
  • Embed with teams as needed to create engineering structures and patterns that enable collaborative and effective work, including embedding with Customized Experience Platform engineers to unblock implementation.
  • Create new development frameworks and collaborate with teams to create solution components that accelerate adoption of paved paths across web, mobile, and content-driven experiences.
  • Lead research into new techniques and best practices and share the results across the organization.
  • Participate in team collaboration sessions to provide technical expertise, solve complex or architecturally impactful problems, and remove technical roadblocks.
  • Participate in product planning and implementation and help the product owner translate customer outcomes into technical strategy, capability roadmaps, and actionable engineering work.
  • Provide technical leadership in system design across multiple teams and collaborate across teams to create outcome-oriented solutions.
  • Broker solution design and implementation across product teams to achieve critical technology and strategic priorities.
  • Promote cross-team adherence to technology standards and target architecture.
  • Design, develop, document, and analyze overall hardware and software architecture and provide technical expertise to engineers across the company.
  • Create enterprise design patterns and provide technology insights that guide the organization's strategic technology vision.
  • Provide feedback from teams to operations as new requirements for operationalizing products become necessary, using proofs of concept or full implementations when appropriate.
  • Define high-level capability requirements for the product or platform and collaborate with teams across the organization.
  • Provide platform technology expertise to teams within the product group and to interdependent teams across the organization.
  • Partner with the engineering community inside and outside Thrivent to establish best practices.
  • Define and share engineering standards across internal teams and collaborate to help engineers apply these patterns to build outcome-oriented solutions.
  • Participate in external activities, including open-source software contributions and meetups.
  • Lead resolution of critical incidents and provide technical leadership in proactively addressing critical production issues and outages.
  • Assess and introduce technology to build more stable, scalable, and resilient software.
  • Evaluate, recommend, and execute new continuous integration and continuous delivery components to improve product stability.
  • Build partnerships across technical areas to influence when needed.
  • Consult on software solution evaluations and advise how solutions fit into the larger product-area strategy.
  • Contribute criteria to the evaluation and selection of platforms and software for the product team.
  • Provide guidance and reinforcement regarding established engineering best practices across product groups and the organization.
  • Provide technical leadership and mentoring to engineers across the organization.
  • Provide training and demonstrations to address knowledge gaps across teams and product groups.
  • Engage with the technology community to build Thrivent's technology brand and position it as an employer of choice.
  • Contribute to the recruitment process to hire engineering talent for the organization.
  • Model Thrivent's leadership competencies: Model the Way, Rally the Team, and Deliver Outcomes.
  • Support and develop an environment focused on continuous improvement, employee engagement, and commitment to clients, and help shape a culture representing Thrivent's purpose, promise, and values.
Desired Qualifications
  • A Master's degree in a related field is preferred.
  • Financial Services industry experience is preferred.
  • Experience coaching or mentoring other team members is preferred.

Thrivent combines financial advice, insurance, investments and banking with generosity programs to help individuals and communities thrive. It treats money as a tool rather than a goal, guiding over 2 million clients to plan and protect their finances while also supporting charitable giving. The company’s model centers on helping people build financial futures and live more generous lives through a broad suite of financial services and community-focused initiatives. Differentiators include its emphasis on generosity and community impact, long-standing 100-year legacy, and integrated approach across planning, protection, growth and philanthropy. The goal is to empower people to manage their finances responsibly and contribute to the well-being of their communities.

Company Size

5,001-10,000

Company Stage

N/A

Total Funding

N/A

Headquarters

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Founded

1902

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Thrivent ended 2025 with $212 billion AUM/AUA and $18.2 billion surplus.
  • It returned $555 million to clients in 2025, reinforcing retention and trust.
  • Demand for human advice stays strong as over 100,000 advisors near retirement.

What critics are saying

  • The SEC fight over FINRA arbitration rules turns into a costly, distracting 2026 legal grind.
  • Advisor recruiting depends on training 600 hires; weak conversion slows growth by 2027.
  • If client growth stalls, Thrivent's advisor-expansion strategy becomes an expensive labor-arbitrage bet.

What makes Thrivent unique

  • Thrivent hired 600 advisors in 2025 and targets 600 more in 2026.
  • Its Virtual Advice Team blends remote coverage with traditional field-network selling.
  • Purpose-driven branding and generosity programs differentiate Thrivent from commission-first wealth rivals.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Paid Sick Leave

Paid Holidays

Relocation Assistance

Company News

Fortune
Mar 13th, 2026
Thrivent plans to hire 600 financial advisors in 2026, bucking AI layoff trend

Thrivent, a Minneapolis-based financial services company ranked 388 on the Fortune 500, plans to hire 600 financial advisors in 2026, matching its 2025 target. The initiative addresses a looming talent shortage as over 100,000 US financial advisors are expected to retire within the next decade. The company recruits through its traditional field network and a Virtual Advice Team, where advisors serve clients remotely. Participants typically spend 12 to 24 months in training before joining established teams or launching their own practices. The programme attracts early-career professionals and second-career candidates from fields like teaching and business. Thrivent, which manages $212 billion in assets and serves 2.4 million clients, is using AI to support rather than replace advisors, focusing on tools that enable high-value client work.