Ready to take the next step in your career? Maybe you’re looking for advancement opportunities, a better work-life balance, or just something new and exciting.

At Pekin Insurance, we strive to go Beyond the expected® in everything we do.

REMOTE position. Come to home office in Pekin, IL once a quarter.

Position Overview

The Software Engineer is responsible for working collaboratively with product and platform teams to create and support rich, interactive applications that help end users manage their data and processes. Software Engineer designs, codes, tests, implements, scales and (in some cases) supports application software and systems, usually as part of an Agile Development Team.

Software Engineer works closely with Analysts, Product Owners, and Product Managers to understand business requirements and translate these into product or platform features, user stories, and/or components. Software Engineer drives the analysis and physical design of technical solutions related to a product or platform and is expected to effectively write new programs as well as support upgrades, maintenance or issue resolution for existing applications and systems. The Software Engineer uses DevOps and Agile processes to deliver desired functionality quickly and effectively, while iterating to continue development. Software Engineer owns all aspects of development, from user experience (UX) planning to deployment.

The Software Engineer contributes to the development of the team backlog and architectural runway, management of work in process (WIP) levels, and support of engineering aspects of program and solution Kanban. Software Engineer may also participate in program increment planning, pre- and- post planning, system, and solution demos, and inspect and adapt events.

Essential Job Functions

• Participates and plays an active role in all Agile Team activities and is accountable for regularly producing product increments that effectively contribute to solution features and/or components
• Participates in release events as required

• Works closely with product teams to define the requirements and associated features and user stories of the application

• Understands design elements and visually customizes components to fit the application

• Performs physical design

• Consistently promotes reuse, flexibility, and efficiency in solution design

• Applies advanced techniques such as design thinking or journey mapping to improve user experience (UX)

• Leads the development/builds, installation, initial configuration, and test of solutions

• Produces high-quality production-ready software in small increments

• Responsible for code integrity and organization

• Contributes to end-to-end delivery workflows, even those outside area of expertise or explicit responsibility

• Leads the evaluation of existing applications and platforms and provides recommendations for improving application performance by conducting gap analysis, identifying feasible alternative solutions, and assisting in the scope of modifications

• Constructively works with architecture/integration experts to improve own work and knowledge

• Guides team to adhere to security requirements and use appropriate security frameworks and tools

• Ensures the troubleshooting, diagnoses, documentation, and resolution of escalated support problems

• Applies operation break fixes and other proactive maintenance activities until permanent solutions can be implemented

• Ensures support of innovative efforts by driving creativity, acting with agility, and thinking outside current boundaries

• Evaluates services provided by vendors and may recommend changes

• Uses technology to implement automation and orchestration

• Performs other duties as assigned

Education & Experience

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in IT Engineering, Computer Science, Business Management, Mathematics, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or Information Sciences preferred, or equivalent experience

• Typically requires 8+ years of experience in the desired field or may have expert technical or business work experience
• Will mentor PolicyCenter development team.

Preferred

• Experience in an agile environment strongly preferred

Certifications & Licenses

• Guidewire - GWCP Certified

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Expert ability to:

• Work across multiple environments including cloud and on-premises, and multiple operating systems

• Use modern web development technologies and techniques (e.g., HTML5, CSS, Java Script, etc.)

• Perform design (e.g., prototype, user interface (UI) design, user experience (UX) design, interaction design)

• Develop solutions for both mobile and desktop

• Collaborate with both business and IT stakeholders and develop constructive working relationships with team and non-team members

• Use judgment to form conclusions that may challenge conventional wisdom

• Consistently apply original thinking to produce new ideas and innovate

Expert understanding of:

• How components throughout the technology “stack” interact

• Front and back-end programming languages/tools

Expert knowledge of:

• Continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD), Agile, and automated deployment best practices

• Databases and database interaction

• Code versioning tools

• Use cases for architectural components and how to apply them

At this time, Pekin Insurance is not accepting candidates needing Sponsorship now or in the future.