Director Of Engineering – GB Member Experiences

Join Our Group Benefits Technology Team

Collaborating with the AVP of Digital Experience, you will lead both Web and Native Mobile engineering for Group Benefits — the core digital experience for our customers.

You will define the future of how members check coverage, submit claims, view benefits, access health information, and manage their digital interactions across all platforms.

If you're a technically strong, inspiring engineering leader who thrives in high-stakes and high availability environments and loves building world-class platforms, explore our team!

You will shape the engineering culture, technical strategy, and execution across multiple channels and technologies, while being directly accountable for reliability, performance, and positive customer experience.

Position Responsibilities:

Lead the Full GB Member Experience Engineering Organization

• Lead and develop Engineering Managers, Web squads, and Mobile squads across GB member-facing digital experiences.
• Build a high-performance team rooted in ownership, clarity, engineering excellence, and customer focus.
• Coach engineering leaders and engineers on architecture, systems design, reliability, and modern engineering practices.

Own the Technical Strategy

• Define and implement the engineering vision for the Member Web Portal and native iOS/Android apps.
• Make informed, high-stakes technical decisions in architecture, transformation, reliability, and platform evolution.
• Align engineering standards across frontend, backend, mobile, cloud, observability, security, and accessibility.

Drive Performance, Stability and Customer Experience

• Availability, uptime, and reliability.
• Performance (page load speed, API response time, native app cold start, crash rates, ANRs).
• Member feedback and native app ratings.
• Removing customer friction through data-driven improvements.

Accelerate Delivery and Transformation Enablement

• Lead GB Web modernization from legacy technologies to React, Node, and Azure cloud patterns.
• Drive excellence in native iOS and Android development, testing, tooling, and release quality.
• Champion cloud-native engineering, CI/CD, automation, and modern DevOps workflows.
• Establish shared engineering patterns, reusable components, and consistent experiences across platforms.

Influence Across the Organization

• Partner alongside Product, UX Design, Architecture, Security, and Compliance.
• Represent Engineering effectively in senior-level business discussions.
• Communicate complex technical decisions with clarity and confidence to executives and partners.

Lead Through Complexity and Pressure

• Navigate and lead through high pressure and urgency.
• Rapid decision-making.
• Navigating ambiguity and competing priorities.
• Leading the organization through production incidents and critical issues.

Required Qualifications:

Deep Technical Expertise

Past hands-on engineering expertise. You can meaningfully contribute to discussions about:

• Web architecture (React, Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL)
• Native mobile engineering (Kotlin, Swift, core platform APIs, performance tuning)
• API design, system performance, cloud topology, resilience, and observability

You can review designs, challenge decisions, guide architecture, and ensure high technical standards.

Leadership Strength

• Minimum 5+ years of experience leading engineering managers and senior engineers.
• A history of shaping engineering culture and building strong, cohesive teams.
• Experience leading multi-platform engineering organizations.
• Platform and Execution Excellence
• Expertise with cloud platforms (Azure preferred), CI/CD, test automation, and DevOps or equivalent experience.
• A track record delivering high-scale, customer-facing digital experiences.
• Ability to balance immediate delivery needs with long-term strategic investments.

What Success Looks Like:

Stable, secure, and high-performing member Web and Mobile experiences.

Measurable improvements in performance, reliability, User Feedback, and app ratings.

Predictable and high-velocity delivery across teams.

Strong cross-organizational alignment with Product, UX, and Business.

A growing engineering culture focused on development, quality, and accountability.

When you join our team:

We'll empower you to learn and grow the career you want.

We'll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.

As part of our global team, we'll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact recruitment@manulife.com.

Referenced Salary Location

Waterloo, Ontario

Working Arrangement

Hybrid

Salary range is expected to be between

$113,260.00 CAD - $210,340.00 CAD

If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact recruitment@manulife.com for the salary range for your location. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact recruitment@manulife.com for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.