Lead Software Engineer

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will develop and execute the key technology components of the Enterprise API Technology & Platform strategy and ensure alignment with Guardian’s enterprise digital strategy. You will be an innovative software engineer and will harness deep industry and technical expertise to develop seamless data integration between Enterprise Applications using RESTful APIs, messaging, and event streams.

As a key technical leader, you will mentor team members, design delivery strategies, and champion a culture of automation and continuous improvement  within the software delivery lifecycle.

You will

• Lead the design, development, and evolution of enterprise APIs, including REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and event‑driven integrations, following API‑first design principles

• Enable developer productivity and self‑service through reusable API frameworks, platforms, templates, SDKs, documentation (OpenAPI/AsyncAPI), and developer portals

• Establish best practices & enterprise capabilities for improving API design, governance, testing, documentation, and release management across development teams

• Drive incident response and resolution for production API and platform issues, lead post‑mortems, and implement preventive and resiliency improvements

• Research emerging technologies and perform PoCs related to API management, integration patterns, platform engineering, and observability

• Ensure compliance with security, data privacy, and performance standards in all integration projects.

• Collaborate with a team of software engineers in implementing and maintaining enterprise APIs and platform(s).

• Mentor and guide engineers on best practices, tools and technologies to enhance delivery quality

You Have:

• Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

• 10+ years of experience in Software engineering, building and operating distributed systems

• Strong hands‑on experience developing high‑quality APIs using Java (Spring Boot), Node.js, .NET, or Python

• Experience with a broad range of web technologies including React, Angular, & Typescript

• Expertise in Microservices Architecture, Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP), and Event‑Driven Architectures

• Strong knowledge of API security including OAuth 2.0, JWT, token lifecycle management, and user access control mechanisms

• Competency with CI/CD automation tools (e.g., Bitbucket, Jenkins, AWS, GitHub)

• Deep understanding of API protocols and integration patterns: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, async/event‑driven architectures

• Experience implementing API observability using logging, metrics, tracing, and monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Splunk)

• Strong experience designing domain‑aligned APIs using OpenAPI / Swagger specifications, with a focus on consistency, reusability, and user/machine readability.

• Deep understanding of containerization & orchestration technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, Helm) and AWS Cloud services S3, Lambda, Kafka, SQS/SNS, Redis Cache.

• Hands‑on experience working with both SQL and NoSQL databases, designing for scale, performance, and reliability

Location:

Three days a week at a Guardian location in New York, NY, Holmdel, NJ, Bethlehem, Pa, or Boston, MA

Salary Range:

$118,980.00 - $195,465.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment visas. In order to be a successful applicant. you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools) to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [email protected], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [email protected].

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here.

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.