Assistant Director of Engineering

Company: Northwestern Mutual
Location: Saint Francis
Posted on: February 15, 2026

Job Description:

As an Assistant Director of Engineering in our Wealth Engineering organization, youll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of how Northwestern Mutual serves our clients through technology. You will lead multiple engineering teams responsible for building and maintaining critical business applications and APIs that empower both our home office employees and field professionals to deliver exceptional client experiences. This role requires a leader who can balance technical excellence with strategic vision, driving innovation while ensuring operational excellence. Youll work at the intersection of product, engineering, and business stakeholders to deliver solutions that directly impact our ability to help clients achieve financial security. This is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on an organization committed to putting clients first, powered by our people, and focused on the future. What Youll Do Lead and Develop High-Performing Teams: Provide technical and leadership guidance to engineering teams, fostering an environment where engineers thrive, learn continuously, and deliver their best work Drive Technical Excellence: Establish and champion engineering standards, best practices, and architectural patterns across teams, ensuring high-quality, scalable, and maintainable solutions Enable Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner effectively with product managers, business stakeholders, and other engineering leaders to translate business objectives into technical strategies and deliverable roadmaps Build and Scale Teams: Recruit, hire, and onboard top engineering talent, creating diverse teams with the right mix of skills and experiences to meet evolving business needs Mentor and Grow Future Leaders: Guide and coach engineers in both technical skills and leadership capabilities, providing actionable feedback and creating opportunities for career advancement Ensure Operational Excellence: Own production stability, monitoring, incident response, and root cause analysis for your teams products, driving continuous improvement in reliability and performance Champion Innovation: Foster a culture of experimentation and calculated risk-taking, encouraging teams to challenge the status quo and pursue innovative solutions that enhance client value Manage Resources Strategically: Oversee team structure, headcount planning, and budget allocation to optimize team effectiveness and deliver on business priorities Lead Through Change: Provide context and vision during organizational changes, helping teams understand the "why" behind decisions and supporting them through transitions Promote Enterprise Thinking: Encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration across teams and departments, breaking down silos to create solutions that benefit Northwestern Mutual as a whole Drive Agile Delivery: Lead teams in adopting and refining agile practices, ensuring iterative delivery of value while maintaining focus on strategic objectives Cultivate Inclusive Culture: Create an environment where diverse perspectives are valued, all voices are heard, and every team member feels empowered to contribute ideas and challenge convention What Youll Bring to the Role Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience Professional Experience: 6-8 years of professional experience in software engineering and technology leadership roles Technical Depth: 4-5 years of hands-on experience with modern engineering practices, including cloud technologies, API design, microservices architecture, CI/CD pipelines, and contemporary programming languages and frameworks Leadership Experience: 2-5 years of direct experience leading and managing engineering teams, with demonstrated success in: Growing technical capabilities and engineering skill sets in others Developing and promoting future engineering leaders Providing direct, actionable feedback and conducting performance reviews Building psychologically safe environments where teams can take calculated risks Proven Track Record: History of successfully designing and delivering significant, high-impact technology solutions that solve real business problems and create measurable value Agile Expertise: Deep experience developing and leading solution delivery using agile methodologies, with ability to adapt practices to fit team and organizational needs Domain Knowledge: Solid understanding of financial services, wealth management, or related business domains, with ability to quickly learn Northwestern Mutuals specific business functions and client needs Communication Excellence: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, from engineers to executives, adapting style and detail level appropriately for the audience Bridge Builder: Proven capability to translate between product, engineering, and business perspectives, fostering alignment and shared understanding across functions Collaborative Leadership: Natural ability to lead teams toward collective goals, promoting collaboration, shared ownership, and enterprise thinking over individual or team silos Strategic Mindset: Ability to balance immediate tactical needs with long-term strategic objectives, making sound decisions despite ambiguity and competing priorities Client-Centric Approach: Passion for understanding how technology decisions impact end clients and commitment to driving exceptional client experiences through every aspect of engineering work Adaptability and Resilience: Comfort operating in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with evolving priorities and the ability to lead teams through change with clarity and confidence Skills You Have Accountability: Holds self and their direct reports accountable for measurable, high-quality, timely, and cost-effective results, delivery, and execution. Determines objectives, sets priorities, delegates work to direct reports, and accepts responsibility for mistakes Business Application: Utilizes both business acumen and technology expertise to translate business requirements/capabilities into technical solutions, and applies technical knowledge of a product/platform/application to align it with a particular line of business (LOB) based on the organizations technology needs and business goals Business Influence: Collaborates, communicates and influences direct reports, stakeholders, and other business functions based on understanding of the marketplace, organizational needs, and the client as a people manager Coaching & Mentoring: Develops others by providing actionable, constructive feedback through the lens of technical expertise and offers guidance to others on how to leverage, prioritize, and develop skills to achieve ones goals and objectives Customer Centricity: Applies a customer first mindset to design and continuously improve solutions, systems, processes, and services that support enterprise strategy, impact critical business outcomes, and drive organizational success Software Development: Creates and maintains applications, frameworks, and other software components via designing, programming, testing, and bug fixing; writes and maintains source code for all processes in the software development life cycle and facilitates the automation and orchestration of disparate systems. Leverage TDD (Test Driven Development) and BDD (Behavior Driven Development) methodologies to ensure unit, integration, and end-to-end testing with appropriate level of coverage is met. Strategic Thinking: Uses critical thinking and knowledge of business demand to plan, design, prioritize and execute high impact initiatives and programs. Compensation Range: Pay Range - Start: $154,000.00 Pay Range - End: $286,000.00 Geographic Specific Pay Structure: Structure 110: $169,400.00 USD - $314,600.00 USD Structure 115: $177,100.00 USD - $328,900.00 USD We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients interests at the center of all we do. Get started now! Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer who welcomes and encourages diversity in the workforce. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives. Skills Strategic Thinking (NM) - Advanced, Cross Functional Partnering & Planning (NM) - Advanced, Application Security (NM) - Advanced, Root Cause Analysis & Decision Quality (NM) - Advanced, DevOps (NM) - Intermediate, Release Management (NM) - Advanced, Software Problem Solving (NM) - Advanced, Strategic Vision & Planning (NM) - Advanced, Customer Centricity (NM) - Expert, Data Literacy (NM) - Intermediate, Coaching & Mentoring (NM) - Advanced, Talent Development & Planning (NM) - Advanced, Technical Problem Solving (NM) - Advanced, Accountability (NM) - Advanced, Business Application (NM) - Advanced, Cloud Technology (NM) - Advanced, Analytical Thinking (NM) - Expert, Business Influence (NM) - Advanced, Adaptive Communication (NM) - Expert, Software Development (NM) - Advanced, Learning Agility & Critical Thinking (NM) - Advanced, IT Strategy (NM) - Advanced, Application Performance Management (NM) - Advanced

Keywords: Northwestern Mutual, Waukegan , Assistant Director of Engineering, IT / Software / Systems , Saint Francis, Illinois