Guidewire Software

Senior Engineering Manager, Advanced Product Designer (APD)

Guidewire Software$148K — $185K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years in engineering management or leading engineering teams
  • Hands-on expertise in Java and cloud-native architectures
  • Experience in SaaS/platform product development
  • Strong knowledge of DevOps practices and CI/CD processes
  • Demonstrated success in implementing AI/ML solutions in software
  • Excellent cross-functional leadership and communication skills
  • Ability to influence and drive architecture decisions

Responsibilities

  • Lead multiple small engineering teams, fostering a culture of innovation and learning
  • Drive the architecture and operational maturity of APD on App Platform 2.0
  • Own and oversee delivery of key design-time and runtime capabilities
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate product strategies into actionable plans
  • Enhance APD's role as the product-model source of truth across the platform
  • Champion interoperability with adjacent platform services to improve developer experience
  • Promote the responsible adoption of AI and data-driven practices

Benefits

  • Flexible work environment
  • Health and wellness benefits
  • Paid time off programs including volunteer time off
  • Market-competitive pay and incentive programs
  • Opportunities for continuous development and internal career advancement
Full Job Description
Summary
Join Guidewire's Application Platform organization within Product Development & Operations (PDO), where we build the shared platform capabilities that underpin Guidewire's cloud products and developer experience. Within this space, Advanced Product Designer (APD) is a core App Platform capability focused on product configuration and lifecycle management alongside services such as Rules, Package Manager, App Manager, and related platform tooling.
APD is a cloud-based product design capability that helps insurers design, and deploy insurance products more rapidly. It supports the full product lifecycle and helps customers define product structure, generate downstream artifacts, and accelerate delivery through Cloud APIs and related platform integrations.
As a Senior Engineering Manager for APD, you will lead multiple small engineering teams and their technical leads, guiding the evolution of APD on App Platform 2.0. This role combines people leadership, technical strategy, architectural stewardship, and cross-functional execution. You will help scale APD as a strategic product-modeling capability, strengthen its integration with adjacent App Platform services, and drive the next phase of Guidewire's cloud, API, and AI-enabled product configuration experience.

Job Description

What you'll do
  • Lead multiple APD engineering teams, typically 2-3 small teams and their technical leads, building a high-accountability, high-trust culture that emphasizes coaching, inclusion, innovation, and continuous learning.
  • Drive the architecture, delivery, and operational maturity of APD on App Platform 2.0, ensuring services are scalable, secure, observable, and aligned to Guidewire engineering standards.
  • Own delivery across APD's key design-time and runtime capabilities, including the continued evolution of APD services, APIs, and supporting platform integrations.
  • Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, UX, Platform Engineering, Security, and SRE to translate product strategy into execution plans, drive launches, and ensure APD meets customer, compliance, and reliability expectations.
  • Help shape APD's role as the product-model source of truth across the platform, including its relationship to schemas, rules, APIs, downstream digital experiences, and broader App Platform services.
  • Drive platform stewardship by working across adjacent capabilities such as Rules, Schema Editor, Package Manager, App Manager, and other lifecycle services to improve interoperability, reuse, and developer experience.
  • Champion responsible adoption of AI, automation, and data-driven engineering practices across the organization, both in how teams build software and in how APD capabilities evolve over time.
  • Establish strong execution discipline across multiple teams by setting clear priorities, improving planning and delivery predictability, and ensuring high-quality outcomes across feature delivery, reliability, and security.
  • Hire, coach, and develop senior engineers and technical leads, raising the technical and leadership bar while creating growth opportunities for the organization.
  • At Guidewire, we foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, and responsible use of AI-empowering our teams to continuously leverage emerging technologies and data-driven insights to enhance productivity and outcomes.
What you'll bring
Required
  • Demonstrated ability to embrace AI and apply it to engineering leadership, product delivery, and team productivity, using data-driven insight to improve outcomes.
  • Extensive software engineering experience in SaaS or platform product development, with substantial experience managing engineering teams and leading through technical leads or multiple teams.
  • Strong hands-on technical background in Java and modern backend engineering, with depth in distributed systems, microservices, cloud-native architecture, and secure multi-tenant platforms.
  • Proven experience building and operating cloud applications on modern platforms such as AWS, including Kubernetes, containerization, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
  • Experience driving architectural decisions, design reviews, and technical execution for platform or enterprise software products.
  • Demonstrated experience integrating AI/ML or GenAI capabilities into production software, platforms, or software engineering workflows.
  • Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to influence product, architecture, UX, platform, and operations stakeholders.
  • Strong communication, judgment, and organizational leadership, with a track record of delivering measurable business and engineering outcomes across a broad scope.
Preferred
  • Experience with product configuration, product modeling, rules, or lifecycle-management systems, ideally in insurance or another complex enterprise domain.
  • Familiarity with APD, PolicyCenter, Cloud APIs, App Events, digital integrations, or adjacent App Platform services is strongly preferred.
  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Your impact

In your first six months, you will establish leadership across the APD organization, align multiple teams around a coherent technical and delivery strategy, and improve execution across architecture, delivery, and operational health. You will help clarify APD's design-time and runtime service evolution, strengthen its role in Guidewire's App Platform strategy, and accelerate delivery of product-modeling capabilities that feed downstream APIs, integrations, and digital experiences.

Over time, your influence will extend beyond APD itself. You will shape how product configuration capabilities evolve across App Platform, raise the leadership capacity of the organization, and help Guidewire deliver a more unified, scalable, and AI-enabled product development experience for insurers.
What's in it for you

The people we employ give their all, and in return, we offer flexibility wherever we can, such as:
  • Flexible work environment
  • Health and wellness benefits
  • Paid time off programs including volunteer time off
  • Market-competitive pay and incentive programs
  • Continual development and internal career growth opportunities

All new hires participate in our in-person orientation process to ensure a strong start at Guidewire.

The Canadian CAD base salary range for this full-time position is $148,000 - $185,000. Your base pay will depend on your experience, skills, education, training, and location among other factors. All full-time positions or part-time roles working 30 hours or more a week at Guidewire are eligible for benefits that support their health and well-being including health, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, and a company sponsored retirement plan. In addition, some roles may be eligible for the annual company bonus plan, commissions, and/or long term incentive awards which are contingent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, company and employee performance.

About Guidewire Software

Guidewire Software, Inc. provides software products for property and casualty insurers worldwide. The company offers Guidewire InsuranceSuite comprising Guidewire PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and ClaimCenter applications. It also provides Guidewire InsuranceNow, a cloud-based platform, which offers policy, billing, and claims management functionality to insurers that prefer to subscribe to a cloud-based solution. In addition, the company offers Guidewire Underwriting Management, a cloud-based integrated business application; Guidewire Rating Management that enables insurers to address the pricing needs; Guidewire Reinsurance Management, a cloud-based application that helps insurers to manage their reinsurance activities; and Guidewire Client Data Management, a cloud-based application, which provides customer data management capabilities. Further, it provides Guidewire Product Content Management that provides software tools and standards-based line-of-business templates to introduce and modify products; Guidewire AppReader, a natural language processing tool; Guidewire ClaimCanvas, a claim fraud detection and investigation solution; Guidewire ClaimCenter Test Automation, a testing solution for ClaimCenter; Guidewire PolicyCenter Test Automation, a testing solution for PolicyCenter; and Guidewire DevConnect, a developer environment that offers tools to develop and support integration applications. Additionally, the company offers implementation and integration, maintenance support, and professional services, as well as Guidewire Live, a cloud-based analytics platform. It sells its products primarily through its direct sales force. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.
Learn more about Guidewire Software
Size
2,942 employees
Market Cap
$5 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$21.1 million
Founded
2001
5 Year Trend
+9.8%
Revenue
$761.6 million
NASDAQ

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