Engineering Manager – Guidewire Cloud Platform (JDP & AI Integration)

Summary We're looking for an Engineering Manager to join our development team in Dublin, Ireland. You will play a key role in building products that improve the experience of Guidewire customers worldwide, working in a team of specialists who have a shared commitment to push further and achieve more. At Guidewire, we are changing the face of insurance by developing and delivering technology that crafts the future of the property and casualty industry. We are a global team of more than 3,500 working at scale and speed across a 1 billion dollar platform that gives insurers the tools they need to take care of their customers. Individually mastering our craft, we collectively empower millions. Job Description Guidewire Cloud Platform & Jutro Digital Platform (JDP) We are part of the team responsible for building the Guidewire Cloud Platform, enabling our customers to develop and deploy Guidewire Insurance Platform solutions to the cloud, similar to deploying applications on AWS. Under the hood, the platform is built utilizing the Kubernetes ecosystem for scalability and efficiency. In this role, you will lead teams developing the JDP (Jutro Digital Platform). The JDP is our modern frontend and backend architecture that empowers customers to build scalable, accessible, and performant digital experiences. Your teams will be responsible for building components across the entire JDP stack. On the frontend, this involves working with React 18/19, the Jutro Design System (including atomic components and design tokens), Micro Frontends via Module Federation, and modern tooling. On the backend, your teams will develop autonomous microservices built primarily on a JVM stack using Java 21, Kotlin, and Spring Boot 3.x, supported by AWS-native services. The underlying infrastructure and data layers utilize Kubernetes within AWS, PostgreSQL, Kafka/AWS MSK, and JFrog Artifactory for package distribution. Our teams take ownership of all aspects of the software development lifecycle for their services, including architecture, coding, quality assurance, infrastructure, and deployment/upgrade strategies. We embrace agile methodologies to promote collaboration and efficiency across our projects. Pioneering AI-Assisted Development Guidewire is moving toward a future of Spec-Driven, AI-Assisted Development (SDD). We believe in augmenting our engineers with the best AI tools while maintaining strong human oversight, security, and cognitive ownership. As an Engineering Manager, you will be at the forefront of this transformation. You will guide your teams in adopting our AI Governance Policy and "AI Craft" practices. This involves accelerating the Spec-Driven Development by ensuring that structured markdown specifications for requirements, design, and evaluations are co-located with code. Furthermore, you will ensure your team is proficient with approved AI tools, including Claude Code for agentic workflows and MCP integration, GitHub Copilot, Developer Assistant, and knowledge search tools. Maintaining a "human in the loop" philosophy is critical; AI outputs must be reviewable, explainable, and secure by design. You will foster a culture where engineers leverage AI for speed but maintain deep cognitive ownership of the code they ship. Finally, you will track key metrics such as PR cycle time, AI-generated test coverage, and the qualitative outcomes of AI adoption to continuously refine and improve our development processes. We prioritize structured, high-bandwidth collaboration. This role requires in-office attendance for 10 days per month. This dedicated time fosters deep team integration, cross-pod planning, and the dynamic, creative problem-solving that defines our engineering culture. What We're Looking For We are seeking an experienced leader with 8 or more years of professional experience in software engineering, including 3+ years in an engineering leadership role. You should have demonstrated success leading multiple development teams, specifically in designing and building microservices within cloud-based architectures. A deep understanding of modern web architectures is essential, preferably with experience in both frontend ecosystems like React and Node.js, and backend JVM stacks such as Java, Kotlin, and Spring Boot. Strong AI literacy is a core requirement for this role; you must have a proven interest or experience in AI-assisted development, prompt engineering, or integrating AI tools such as Copilot, Claude, or similar large language models into the software development lifecycle. You will have the autonomy to define tactical approaches for your domain, ensuring our engineering strategies align with both the product roadmap and our long-term AI-assisted development goals. You must possess a proven ability to deliver against a long-term technical roadmap, coupled with strong skills in effective communication and providing clarity across stakeholders. Deep expertise in software engineering best practices, including design documents like RFCs and ADRs, pair programming, automated testing, and code reviews, is expected. Above all, we value a strong sense of curiosity and a passion for continual learning and professional development. What You Will Do As an Engineering Manager, you will be responsible for leading teams, driving technical excellence, and spearheading our transition to AI-assisted development. Team Leadership & Development Lead and Mentor: Provide candid feedback, mentorship, and coaching to foster a high-performing environment. Empower Through Delegation: Effectively delegate responsibilities to encourage team growth and autonomy. Align Priorities: Define and communicate clear team goals that support the broader organizational strategy, ensuring alignment across multiple teams. Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work regularly with stakeholders to develop and execute quarterly plans, ensuring transparency in delivery. Recruitment & Team Building: Actively participate in hiring, interviewing, and onboarding new engineers to scale the team effectively. Performance Management: Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and manage career progression for direct reports. Agile Process Ownership: Champion and refine agile methodologies within your teams to continuously improve delivery efficiency and collaboration. Incident Management & Operational Excellence: Oversee the operational health of your teams' services, participating in incident response and ensuring robust monitoring and alerting practices. AI Adoption & Innovation Drive AI Integration: Champion the adoption of AI tools within your teams, standardizing the AI toolbox and integrating teams into org-level AI programs. Implement Spec-Driven Development (SDD): Ensure repositories and workflows are optimized for SDD, co-locating structured markdown specifications with code. Run Focused Pilots: Lead focused AI pilots to evaluate new tools and workflows. Share Learnings: Actively share AI outcomes and insights to help the organization converge on shared, effective patterns. Technical Excellence & Delivery Champion Best Practices: Enforce software development and documentation best practices to ensure high-quality, on-time project delivery. Oversee System Design: Validate architectural decisions across the JDP stack (React, Kotlin, Spring Boot, AWS) to ensure robustness and scalability. Ensure Quality & Alignment: Verify that technical designs meet both technical and business requirements. About Guidewire Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire. As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported