Lead Software Architect - Innovation

Mutual of Omaha is seeking a forward‑thinking Software Architect to turn business needs into clear architecture requirements and bring a strong customer perspective to our Distributed Operations technology decisions. In this role, you'll help drive key strategic initiatives, applying Artificial Intelligence (AI tools) to drive modernization of core platforms, such as improving application and underwriting experiences, enhancing the customer and associate experienceA, and accelerating delivery through innovation.

We're looking for a technically strong, collaborative leader who can influence teams and deliver modern, secure, scalable solutions. As a Lead Architect with the Distributed Operations Agile Release Train (ART), you'll partner with business and technology teams to build solutions that support multiple products and use cases across the value stream.

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU:

• Estimated Salary (Levels have variable responsibilities and qualifications)

• Architect III: $170,000 - $180,000, plus annual bonus opportunity

• 401(k) plan with a 2% company contribution and 6% company match.

• Work-life balance with vacation, personal time and paid holidays. See our benefits and perks page for details.

• Applicants for this position must not now, nor at any point in the future, require sponsorship for employment.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Architecture Leadership: Lead the technical vision, architecture strategy, and architectural runway for the Agile Release Train, ensuring alignment with business objectives, enterprise standards, and long-term technology roadmaps. Drive modernization initiatives by decomposing monolithic applications into scalable, cloud-native, API-driven, and event-based architectures that increase business agility, resilience, and time-to-market.

Strategy, Planning & AI Enablement: Partner with Enterprise Architects, Product Management, and business stakeholders to define and execute a technology vision that incorporates AI, automation, data, and emerging technologies. Establish roadmaps for solution modernization, experimentation, governance, and technical debt reduction, and identify opportunities to leverage AI to improve customer experiences, operational efficiency, decision-making, and engineering productivity.

API and Event-Driven Architectural Focus: Designing enterprise level systems leveraging APIs and events as the core mechanisms of architectural integration. Experience leveraging Domain Driven Design to turn business needs into maintainable systems, organized using principles like business domains and bounded contexts. Ability to guide technical teams through the challenges of distributed systems and their unique requirements and tradeoffs.

Innovation, Prototyping & Emerging Technology Exploration: Champion a culture of innovation through design thinking, rapid prototyping, proof-of-concepts (PoCs), and experimentation. Lead the evaluation of AI-driven capabilities, intelligent automation, predictive analytics, and emerging technologies by facilitating "what-if" scenario analysis, architecture workshops, and design sprints to validate technical feasibility, business value, and scalability.

Stakeholder Leadership & Influence: Serve as a trusted advisor to executives, business leaders, product teams, engineers, vendors, and external partners. Translate complex technical concepts into business outcomes, align stakeholders around strategic priorities, and influence investment decisions that balance innovation, risk, cost, and value delivery across the ART. Promote a culture of diversity and inclusion, value different ideas and opinions, and listen courageously, remaining curious in all that you do.

Quality, Governance & Responsible AI: Establish and enforce architecture governance, engineering standards, and non-functional requirements, including security, scalability, resiliency, observability, performance, compliance, and operational excellence. Define guardrails for AI adoption to ensure solutions adhere to responsible AI principles, regulatory requirements, data privacy standards, and enterprise risk management practices.

Mentorship, Engineering Excellence & Continuous Learning: Foster a high-performing engineering culture by coaching architects, engineers, and analysts in solution design, feature engineering, AI-assisted development, and systems thinking. Encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and continuous improvement by challenging teams to ask "why," share knowledge, adopt best practices, and leverage AI tools responsibly to accelerate delivery and improve quality.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING:

• 8+ years of continuously increased scope and leadership in the architecture space, with experience in enterprise architecture and software engineering, solution design, leading architecture strategy, and modernization initiatives across complex, large-scale organizations.
• Expert-level proficiency in cloud-native, distributed, and event-driven architectures, including AWS (preferred), APIs, microservices, integration patterns, DevSecOps, CI/CD, and software development lifecycle management.
• Advanced technical knowledge of legacy and modern languages, relational databases, and modern cloud platforms - AWS, Java, Containerization, Relational and Non-Relational Database, Mainframe.
• Legacy modernization experience in assessing, transforming, and upgrading older (legacy) systems into modern, scalable, and maintainable technology platforms.
• Strong AI and data architecture acumen, with experience identifying, evaluating, and implementing AI, automation, and intelligent workflow solutions while establishing governance, security, and responsible AI practices.
• Proven leadership in Agile and SAFe environments, partnering with Product Management, Business Owners, Enterprise Architects, and ART teams to align technology strategy with business outcomes and drive execution.
• Exceptional strategic thinking and influence skills, with the ability to manage risk, evaluate trade-offs, guide organizational change, and serve as a trusted advisor. Insurance or financial services industry experience preferred.
• Able to work remotely with access to a high-speed internet connection and located in the United States or Puerto Rico.

PREFERRED:

• TOGAF Certified. Insurance industry experience.
• Experience with AWS - S3, Bedrock, SageMaker, EC2, Connect, CDK, SDK, etc.).
• Practical familiarity with autonomous AI systems
• Participation in industry groups and/or communities of practice.

This role is classified as remote; however, periodic in-person attendance will be required at times for activities such as quarterly or project planning, training, or other business-critical meetings.

We value diverse experience, skills, and passion for innovation. If your experience aligns with the listed requirements, please apply!

If you have questions about your application or the hiring process, email our Talent Acquisition area at careers@mutualofomaha.com. Please allow at least one week from time of applying if you are checking on the status.

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