Senior Cloud Platform & Site Reliability Engineering Lead

Come join one of America's fastest-growing insurance companies. Since 1848, National Life Group has aimed to keep our promises, providing families with stability in good times and in bad. Throughout that history, we have provided peace of mind to those families as they plan their futures.

Our mission extends beyond the insurance and annuities policies that we offer. We strive to make the world a better place through our grants from our charitable foundation, paid volunteer time for our employees, environmentally sustainable and healthy workplaces, and events that promote the work of nonprofits in our own backyard.

We foster a collaborative environment with opportunities for growth and encourage our associates to live our values: Do good. Be good. Make good.

Please note that we do not offer visa sponsorship for this position.

Role Summary

The Senior Cloud Platform & Site Reliability Engineering Lead partners with business and technical stakeholders to lead cloud platform design, engineering, and integration efforts. This individual has a proven track record of driving continuous improvement across infrastructure, platform services, and application reliability.

This role is a senior technical leadership position within the National Life Group IT Shared Services team. You will represent cloud and platform engineering in project initiatives, architecture design, and operational excellence while collaborating across a vibrant technical community. We're looking for an inquisitive individual with a passion for continuous learning, attention to detail, and a drive to follow-through. This role can be located in Dallas (Addison), TX; Montpelier, VT.

This position currently offers an onsite work schedule, with the expectation that you are in the office four (4) days per week during onsite core days.  Our current onsite core days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  The work schedule type and core days are subject to change with advance notification and manager discretion.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Cloud Platform & Infrastructure Delivery

• You will lead design and delivery of cloud-native solutions within Microsoft Azure and other.
• You will lead development and enhancement of CI/CD, SRE, and observability capabilities.
• You will drive infrastructure automation using Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, ARM, other).
• You will serve as a subject matter expert in pipeline configuration, code repository management, and related controls.
• You will help lead incident resolution and business issue remediation.
• You will lead identifying and managing capacity, performance, and risk.
• You will adhere to and promote firm Change Management and Problem Management policies (ITIL).
• You possess the ability to communicate effectively with appropriate detail across all levels.

SRE & Platform Engineering

• You will lead adoption of SRE practices including SLIs/SLOs and reliability engineering principles.
• You will drive improvements in system reliability, scalability, and performance.
• You will leverage Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and APM tools such as New Relic for observability.
• You will promote automation and AI-assisted operations to reduce manual effort and improve outcomes.

Infrastructure Architecture & Strategy

• You will drive innovation and remain current on Azure and emerging cloud technologies.
• You will define and promote Azure architecture standards (networking, identity, security).
• You will lead adoption of cloud-native patterns (AKS, serverless, PaaS services).
• You will collaborate with development, QA, and operations teams to integrate CI/CD and observability practices.
• You will communicate effectively with stakeholders across engineering and business teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree, preferred in Computer Science; or relevant work experience.
• 8+ years of hands-on with CI/CD pipelines, APM tools, source code management, infrastructure, cloud, or platform engineering experience with at least 4 years in a technical leadership role.
• Open-minded with proven ability to work collaboratively with others.
• Show up consistently with a positive attitude.
• Demonstrated ability to lead in a highly matrixed, heavily outsourced organization through influence and partnership.
• Ability and interest in mentoring technical staff and raising collective technical competencies.
• Ability to manage change and operate effectively in complex environments.

Technical Expertise

Broad engineering awareness with strong expertise in multiple of the following areas -

• Microsoft Azure (compute, storage, networking, identity, monitoring)
• Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, ARM, Other)
• Pipeline Technologies (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, CI/CD)
• Code Repository Management (GIT)
• Monitoring & Instrumentation Tools (Azure Monitor, Application Insights, New Relic or similar)
• Containers & Serverless (AKS, Azure Functions)
• Proficiency in scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, etc.)
• DevSecOps tools (SonarQube, JFrog, SwaggerHub or similar)
• Experience with AWS or other cloud platforms is a plus
• Exposure to AI technologies in development and application performance (AIOps)

Benefits

• Your benefits start day one and are flexible and customizable to your and your family's specific needs. Check out the BENEFITS of a Career at National Life!

Base Pay Range.  The base pay range for this position is the range National Life reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for the position taking into account the wide variety of factors, including: prior experience and job-related knowledge; education, training and certificates; current business needs; and market factors.  The final salary or hourly wages offered may be outside of this range based on other reasons and individual circumstances.

Additional Compensation and Benefits. The total compensation package for this position may also include a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as vacation, sick time, and parental leave), dependent on the position offered. The successful candidate may also be eligible to participate in National Life's discretionary annual incentive programs, subject to the rules governing such programs. If hired, the employee will be in an "at-will position" and National Life reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

National Life is accepting applications for this role on an ongoing basis and the role remains open until filled.

Salary Pay Range

$136,875—$200,750 USD

National Life Group is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company, Montpelier, VT - founded in 1848, Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, Addison, TX - chartered in 1955, and their affiliates. Each company of National Life Group is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest is not an authorized insurer in New York and does not conduct insurance business in New York. Equity Services, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC, is a Broker/Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser affiliate of National Life Insurance Company. All other entities are independent of the companies of National Life Group.

Fortune 1000 status is based on the consolidated financial results of all National Life Group companies.

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National Life Group

1 National Life Dr

Montpelier, VT 05604