Berkley Technology Services (BTS) is the dynamic technology solution for W. R. Berkley Corporation, a Fortune 500 Commercial Lines Insurance Company. With key locations in Urbandale, IA and Wilmington, DE, BTS provides innovative and customer-focused IT solutions to the majority of WRBC’s 60+ operating units across the globe. BTS’s wide reach ensures that ideas and opinions are considered at every level of the organization to guarantee we find the best solutions possible.
Driven by a commitment to collaboration, BTS acts as consultants to our customers and Operating Units by providing comprehensive solutions that not only address the challenge at hand, but proactively plan for the “What’s Next” in our industry and beyond.
With a culture centered on innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, BTS stands as a community of technology leaders with eyes toward the future -- leaders who truly care about growing not only their team members, but themselves, and take pride in their employees who shine. BTS offers endless ways to get involved and have the chance to grow your career into a wide range of roles you'd never known existed. Come join us as we push forward into the future of industry leading technological solutions.
Berkley Technology Services: Right Team, Right Technology, Simple and Secure.
ResponsibilitiesThe Principal Solution Architect (Guidewire) helps lead the organization in the planning, development, and application of solution architecture to achieve business objectives and strategies. They align technical initiatives, principles, and practices with WRB’s strategic vision, goals, constraints, technologies, and tools. They span business and technical strategies as well as provide detailed design recommendations to individual solutions. This role understands the relationship between business processes and enabling technologies over a multi-year time horizon so that better recommendations and better decisions can be made.
Technical Strategy:
Influence the business strategic planning process by providing input on key initiatives, priorities, and dependencies toward the creation of roadmaps. Construct overall 3-5-year architecture strategy, including technology investment and lifecycle goals. Build target and reference architectures to contribute to WRB’s multi-year Guidewire software strategy. Influence and socialize the development, management, and ongoing maintenance of a solution capability model. Maintain contact with vendors, industry peers, and professional associations to keep informed of existing and emerging industry trends, standards, and technologies.
Consulting/Guidance:
Influence solution strategy and context while providing aligned recommendations. Provide consulting and guidance services to development and infrastructure teams as well as other architects and vendors in the development of solutions. Present recommendations and solutions clearly and concisely to multiple audiences (including program leadership, including technical and business leaders); emphasizing capability development and value creation over technology specific results. Provide technical direction to solution staff in partnership with VPs and other leaders. Participate in technology and tool evaluations, which may include hands-on engineering and proof-of-concept work.
Leadership
Influence business partners, technical groups, and management on technical strategy, priorities, and timelines. Set a strong example of what it means to be an architect and a technician at WRB, through technical competence, communication, and work ethic. Mentor junior members of the team. Lead multiple aspects of a program or large solution including technical adoptions across BTS and WRB; manage and drive change management activities for impacted groups. Provide Architectural assistance for high-profile projects. Be visible and inspire others to engage with and follow WRB’s technical strategy. Influence the optimization of solution practices and processes.
Patterns and Standards Development
Identify pattern and standard gaps and determine potential options to address. Research, develop, and drive the adoption of design patterns and standards. Perform technology and tool evaluations, including proof-of-concept and feasibility analysis. Provide a catalog of design patterns and standards and sharing them with the architecture and solution community.
Governance
Participate in the architecture review process for patterns, standards, and solutions. Effectively challenge and debate technology and tool recommendations. Is aware of and an advocate for patterns and standards (esp. in Infrastructure, Data, API, Cloud, and Security domains). Owns multiple vendor relationships; actively participates in vendor selection and procurement processes. Participates in vendor selections and procurement process.
Community of Practice
Be an ambassador and advocate of Architecture that broadly communicates the vision, principles, and goals of the Enterprise Architecture organization. Contribute to the architecture community by hosting/participating in online forums, developing standards, patterns, solutions design documentation, and white papers and sharing them broadly. Develop strong relationships with other business and technical teams and mentor less experienced architects/developers/engineers in the development of their skills. Qualifications 15+ years progressive engineering experience developing/engineering solutions and leading multiple enterprise-level cross-domain engineering initiatives. 12+ years in Guidewire Architecture domain leading multiple large-scale architecture initiatives. Multiple (3+) commercial Guidewire PolicyCenter implementations, leveraging SBT and APD across 7+ lines of businessSignificant hands-on technical base across multiple technical domains Ability to thrive and produce results with little or no supervision in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment. Ability to independently come up with solutions that effectively address business and IT issues through technical analysis, troubleshooting, research, evaluation, and communication. Excellent written and oral communication skills with ability to interact seamlessly at all levels with both technical and business stakeholders. Proven capability to work with vendors in research, procurement, and BAU capacities. Strong customer service focus and sense of urgency. Ability to quickly adapt and learn modern technologies and systems Superior problem solving and analytical skills. Ability to create an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration. Ability to look at the “big picture” and see opportunities for improvement. Ability to break opportunities for improvement down into bite-sized chunks that can be pursued on a project-by-project basis.Preferred
2+ Tier1 Guidewire PolicyCenter implementations3+ years using Agile development methodologies. 4+ years Arhictect experience at a product company. 2+ years in a management or leadership role. Work history in the financial services or insurance industries.
The Company is an equal employment opportunity employer
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