Delivery Manager - Engineering

What You'll do

As a Delivery Manager - Engineering at Principal Financial Group, you will lead the design and delivery of scalable, cloud-native solutions using Java, Spring Boot, APIs, and AWS while driving technical excellence across engineering teams. You'll partner with Product, Architecture, Security, and Business stakeholders to translate business needs into sustainable technical solutions, mentor engineers and Tech Leads, guide architectural decisions, and help modernize platforms through cloud, AI, and automation initiatives.

You'll play a key role in solving complex engineering challenges, influencing technology strategy, and ensuring the delivery of secure, reliable, and high-performing applications that create measurable business value.

You'll have opportunity to

Delivery & Execution Leadership

• Lead multiple cross-functional engineering teams delivering business-critical technology solutions.
• Drive the implementation of central initiatives, product roadmaps, modernization programs, and operational excellence objectives.
• Establish delivery governance, planning, prioritization, dependency management, release management, and risk mitigation practices.
• Ensure predictable delivery outcomes aligned with business commitments and organizational goals.
• Handle production support, operational health, service reliability, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Engineering & Technology Leadership

• Provide engineering leadership and technology oversight for assigned product and platform teams.
• Partner with architects and engineering leads to define and complete technology strategy and modernization initiatives.
• Drive engineering excellence through established guidelines, automation, quality engineering, DevOps, security, and operational resiliency.
• Support technical decision-making, architectural alignment, technical debt reduction, and platform simplification efforts.
• Encourage an environment that values creativity, ongoing education, excellence, and responsibility.

AI & Innovation Leadership

• Lead the adoption of AI-enabled engineering practices to boost development efficiency, delivery velocity, quality, and operational performance.
• Partner with engineering teams to identify, prioritize, and implement solutions powered by artificial intelligence that build measurable business impact.
• Promote responsible use of AI technologies, ensuring compliance, security, governance, and risk management standards.
• Drive innovation culture through experimentation, proof-of-concepts, hackathons, and emerging technology adoption.

Engineering Efficiency, Metrics & Outcomes

• Establish and drive engineering efficiency and operational excellence metrics across teams.
• Apply Developer Experience (DX) and Engineering Excellence frameworks to increase developer efficiency, system reliability, quality, and delivery predictability.
• Leverage engineering insights and platform metrics to identify bottlenecks, improve value stream flow, and increase team efficiency.
• Drive adoption of data-driven decision making using engineering, delivery, quality, and operational benchmarks.
• Promote automation-first approaches to reduce manual effort, improve scalability, and accelerate time-to-market.

People Leadership

• Lead, coach, mentor, and develop engineering talent across multiple teams.
• Drive employee engagement, retention, succession planning, and leadership development initiatives.
• Build high-performing, inclusive teams passionate about collaboration, innovation, and customer outcomes.
• Assist with recruitment, onboarding, workforce planning, and talent acquisition efforts.

Performance & Talent Management

• Own performance management processes including goal setting, development planning, talent assessments, and appraisal cycles.
• Conduct regular mentoring and career development discussions with team members.
• Identify growth opportunities and build development plans aligned with organizational needs.
• Recognize and reward performance while encouraging a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

Collaborator & Business Partnership

• Partner with Product Managers, Architects, Business Leaders, Operations, and Enterprise collaborators.
• Provide regular updates on delivery status, risks, dependencies, and strategic priorities.
• Influence decisions through data-driven insights, technical expertise, and strong business sense.
• Align engineering projects with business goals and customer results.

Position Purpose

Plan, Manage and deliver the project as per contractual agreement.

Essential Functions

% of Time Spent

Delivery Management

• Planning and estimation, scheduling, task allocation, monitoring & control, reviews
• Provide domain and technical leadership, Knowledge Management
• Relationship Management and Partner Satisfaction

40

Process improvement & adherence

• Establish and continually improve project management and execution processes including Risk Management, communication,, defect management & prevention
• Status reporting, metrics generation & analysis

30

People Management

• Staffing, onboarding, Skill building, Back-up Planning
• Employee Satisfaction
• Mentoring team members
• Handling appraisals and feedback

20

Contribution to organizational activities

10

Dimensions

Will usually have 8-20 direct reports and will be responsible for their personnel management

Can handle projects where various types of skill sets (technology) is used as well as distributed teams.

Reporting Relationship

This position reports to:Portfolio Manager (Principal Consultant)

Direct Reports:Consultants, Associate Consultants and Trainees

Who You are

• As a Delivery Manager - Engineering at Principal Financial Group, you will lead the design and delivery of scalable, cloud-native solutions using Java, Spring Boot, APIs, AI exposure and AWS while driving technical excellence across engineering teams.
• Experience: 10 to 13 years
• Technology industry experience with progressive responsibilities in software engineering, technology delivery, or engineering management.
• 3+ years of people leadership experience leading engineering teams.
• Experience leading multiple Agile delivery teams in a complex enterprise environment.
• Proven experience managing performance reviews, talent development, goal setting, and employee mentoring.
• Education: Bachelor’s(Engineering)/Master’s in computer science or a related field.
• Experience leading geographically distributed teams across multiple locations.
• Experience assisting with location strategy, workforce planning, and organizational growth initiatives.
• Experience presenting to senior leadership teams and portfolio governance forums.
• Experience managing large-scale transformation or organizational change programs.
• Solid grasp of Agile, Lean, DevOps, Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and Developer Experience (DX) principles.

What Makes You a Standout Candidate

Thinks like an Engineering Leader and Technology Strategist, not a traditional project manager.

Uses AI, automation, and engineering insights to accelerate delivery and improve outcomes.

Drives measurable improvements in efficiency, quality, reliability, and business value.

Makes data-driven decisions using engineering metrics, delivery benchmarks, and business outcomes.

Balances technology strategy, engineering excellence, people leadership, and business priorities.

Builds a culture of innovation, continuous learning, accountability, and operational excellence.

Successfully translates technology investments into measurable customer and business impact.

As a leader at Principal, you’re responsible for activating our strategy, meeting evolving customer needs, and crafting an inclusive culture. Our leadership expectations serve as a guide to the standards encouraged from all our leaders. Our leaders need to be a positive brand ambassador of our core values and purpose. They need to understand our code of conduct and know the responsibility to comply. They stay respectful of diversity and differences and work towards building inclusive teams and partnerships.