Director, Software Engineering Leader

Director, Developer Acceleration

If you're passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwide's Information Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, "on your side" goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we're looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

This Director role leads a team in Developer Acceleration, a group dedicated to making software engineers more effective through targeted upskilling, Golden Paths, accelerators, and hands-on consulting for large-scale, high-impact initiatives. You will ensure our engineers have the skills, tools, and patterns to deliver securely, quickly, and sustainably.

As the people leader for this function, you will:

• Lead & Develop Talent – Hire, coach, and grow a team of software engineers who combine deep engineering expertise with strong empathy for the developer experience. Prepare talent to compete for future senior engineering roles within Nationwide.
• Own Flagship Programs – Responsible for Build the Builder, our enterprise-wide internal training program, ensuring it evolves to reflect emerging technology trends and best practices.
• Drive Platform & Pattern Adoption – Act as product manager for Golden Paths and accelerators including emerging Agentic AI Golden Path, setting direction, prioritizing capabilities, and measuring adoption and business value.
• Optimize Engagement & Capacity – Manage intake of consulting requests, balance team capacity, and ensure alignment to strategic priorities.
• Steward Financial Resources – Oversee the team's budget, forecasting needs, and optimizing investments to maximize developer impact.
• Champion the Developer Voice – Advocate for solutions that reflect real-world engineering needs by partnering with architecture, product, and platform teams. Ensure developer experience products remove friction, foster innovation, and incorporate AI as a trusted, effective tool in the software engineer's toolkit.

This is an opportunity to lead a highly visible team that directly influences how thousands of engineers at Nationwide learn, build, and deliver. The ideal candidate will bring a unique blend of technical credibility, product mindset, operational discipline, and people-first leadership.

This position follows a hybrid work model, requiring in-office presence at the Columbus, OH location two days per week.

NOTE: This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.

Job Description Summary

If you're enthusiastic about delivering secure technology solutions to support a company providing extraordinary care to its customers, then Nationwide Technology is the place for you. Nationwide's industry-leading technology workforce embraces an agile work environment and a collaborative culture to deliver outstanding solutions and results. If that sounds like something you aspire to, we want to hear from you! As a Software Engineering Leader, you're accountable for the effective and efficient delivery of software to enable business outcomes by using software engineering industry best practices. You'll guide agile technology teams on how work is accomplished across the software lifecycle. You'll also drive software engineering maturity by providing coaching and guidance on Lean, agile and DevSecOps principles, tools and techniques.

Key Responsibilities:

• Responsible for applying secure software and systems engineering practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure our data and technology solutions are protected from threats and vulnerabilities.
• Ensures software engineering and development capability uplift.
• Defines and implements strategies to enable Nationwide as a digital company.
• Demonstrates strategic thinking to evolve software engineering methodologies.
• Enables and champions innovation.
• Identifies key insights from metrics such as time to market (speed), quality and efficiency, and drives continuous improvement.
• Drives an "automation-first" approach within Technology teams.
• Consults on technology team formation, including consolidating, optimizing and de-constructing agile teams.
• Drives variable capacity management for Technology teams through staff augmentation, managed capacity and associate staffing to ensure teams are appropriately staffed.
• Hires and develops talent, provides consistent coaching and feedback.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to Technology, Associate Vice President or above; leads a team of eight or more Technology Professionals.

Typical Skills and Experiences:

Education: Undergraduate studies in computer science, management information systems, mathematics or related field is strongly preferred.

License/Certification/Designation: Certified Scrum Master, Certified Agile Leader, Amazon Web Services Practitioner or other related certifications are encouraged, but not required.

Experience: Eight years of experience using Lean, agile and DevSecOps principles. Five or more years in leading strategic, large-scale initiatives across a variety of technical disciplines.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: Proven track record of optimally leading teams in a matrixed environment. Experience empowering and building an engaged workforce. Experience developing and maintaining strong business partnerships. Vendor management experience a plus. Insurance/financial services industry knowledge a plus.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager's leader and Human Resources Business Partner.

Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions:

Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment. Associates may have on-call responsibility after normal working hours and/or on weekends.

ADA: The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job. Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.

Benefits: We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

NOTE TO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES: We value the partnerships we have built with our preferred vendors. Nationwide does not accept unsolicited resumes from employment agencies. All resumes submitted by employment agencies directly to any Nationwide employee or hiring manager in any form without a signed Nationwide Client Services Agreement on file and search engagement for that position will be deemed unsolicited in nature. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is subsequently hired as a result of the referral or through other means.