Technical Product Owner/ Engineer

The Technical Product Owner/ Engineer supports strategic modernization initiatives within the Financial Protection and Retirement Services Technology organization. The role partners closely with engineering teams to translate business needs into clear technical specifications, features, and system designs. This individual contributes hands‑on to technical discussions, solution design, and implementation support to ensure high‑quality delivery. This individual collaborates with product managers, business partners, and cross‑functional technical teams to shape technical solution. Strong knowledge of Agile is required to manage the backlog and drive iterative development. The individual will be deeply involved in hands-on technical activities such as development, supporting design decisions, creating technical requirements, and ensuring high‑quality implementation.

You Are

A self-starter, continuous learner and hands-on technical engineer who can translate vision from the Platform / Product D&T leader into development by partnering across the engineers, product managers, business partners and executive stakeholders.

You Will

Technical Product Owner/ Engineer

Description

The Technical Product Owner/ Engineer supports strategic modernization initiatives within the Financial Protection and Retirement Services Technology organization. The role partners closely with engineering teams to translate business needs into clear technical specifications, features, and system designs. This individual contributes hands‑on to technical discussions, solution design, and implementation support to ensure high‑quality delivery. This individual collaborates with product managers, business partners, and cross‑functional technical teams to shape technical solution. Strong knowledge of Agile is required to manage the backlog and drive iterative development. The individual will be deeply involved in hands-on technical activities such as development, supporting design decisions, creating technical requirements, and ensuring high‑quality implementation.

You Are

A self-starter, continuous learner and hands-on technical engineer who can translate vision from the Platform / Product D&T leader into development by partnering across the engineers, product managers, business partners and executive stakeholders.

You Will

• Lead the efforts of development team(s) consisting of resources spread across multiple time zones and countries. Work with offshore counterparts to coordinate completion of all team assignments, ensuring deadlines and milestones are met.
• Work with the development team(s) to ensure consistent software architecture and coding practices are used in all applications. Look for opportunities to create shared code modules to use across applications.
• Take a leadership and mentoring role when working with less experienced staff, always raising the bar of technical expertise within the organization.
• Inform project stakeholders on progress and potential problems that jeopardize deadlines and milestones. Make recommendations and modifications; remove obstacles.
• Help define roles and responsibilities within the development team. Be agile and flexible, shifting resources to align with changing priorities.
• As a Technical Product Owner/Engineer in a Product Operating Model:

Partner closely with the Product Manager to shape and execute the product vision, roadmap, and prioritization based on customer and business value.

Co-own backlog refinement by defining, writing, and prioritizing technical stories, spikes, and enablers; write clear Jira stories with acceptance criteria that reflect functional and technical needs.

Align technical solutions with product strategy, long-term architecture, and non-functional requirements (security, performance, scalability, reliability).

Drive an outcome-focused delivery approach using measurable objectives (e.g., OKRs) and product health metrics (e.g., reliability, cycle time, defect trends).

• Work with Business Product Owners and Agile Coaches on feasibility analysis, cost, and resource projections; facilitate architects and teams to generate technical design plans; ensure product specifications and quality standards are met.
• Operate across the full product lifecycle (build release run improve):

Collaborate with Production Support and Product teams to ensure seamless transition of features into production, maintain comprehensive documentation, and provide support for critical incidents as part of the product lifecycle.

Establish and monitor product SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, and observability practices; use telemetry and customer feedback to inform prioritization and continuous improvement.

• Work with architects to determine the best technical solutions and applications for overall use in company products. Provide technical consultation to executive staff in determining competitive strategies.
• Lead implementation efforts for new applications and code updates. Work with enterprise and shared service teams on infrastructure setup, review board approvals, and deployment coordination.
• Stay abreast of new technology trends and advantages. Make recommendations for the direction of new and existing products. Define application roadmaps, including a strategy for minimizing technical debt and advancing modernization.
• Review and approve coding and documentation, user manuals, testing documentation, and procedures for existing and future applications.
• Ensure compliance with security, privacy, legal, infrastructure, and administrative/corporate processes and policies.
• Work with Production Support and other Shared Services teams in support of our products and customers.

You Have:

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in software development, with at least 3 years in a lead or senior engineering role.
• Working experience with Splunk (logging), AppDynamics, JSON/XML, Caching, Performance Analysis & Profiling,
• Experience resolving code smells, vulnerabilities, and application security flaws.
• Experience with source code repositories tools, BitBucket, GitHub.
• Professional experience with CI/CD pipelines, Aws, ECS, Docker and EKS
• Ability to interact and communicate successfully with business partners and technology teams.
• Strong knowledge of release/build/configuration management practices.
• Strong understanding of software best-practices as it applies to web and business application development with hands on architecture design and development experience required in building APIs and front-end applications for large scale platforms.
• Demonstrable understanding of object-oriented design/development, functional programming, service-oriented architecture, and modern front-end frameworks.
• Ability to prioritize and manage work, adhering to critical and aggressive project timelines in a fast-paced environment.
• Extensive experience in Software Development Life Cycle Management using Kanban, Scrum, or Scaled Agile is required.
• Experience working in a rapid and agile development environment with frequent deliveries.
• Passion for building seamless user experiences and collaborating across the stack.

Location:

Hybrid 3 days in Bethlehem, PA or Holmdel, NJ

Salary Range:

$99,150.00 - $162,885.00

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 MyHR@glic.com. 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 Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

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 MyHR@glic.com, 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 MyHR@glic.com.

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.