The Director of Application Development will be an integral member of the IT Leadership Team and Arbella’s corporate senior leadership team. They will serve as a strategic leader and trusted advisor across the company, overseeing the management of all business facing portfolios and driving the success of the entire application development process. The Director of Application Development plans, coordinates, supervises all activities related to the design, development, implementation of the organization’s applications development and analysis function.
They must exhibit strong leadership skills, be highly collaborative, and work cross-functionally to ensure that IT meets the needs of individual business units across the organization while ensuring quality standards, adherence to Arbella’s secure SDLC, and aligning application projects with business objectives; essentially leading the strategic direction of the company's software development initiatives.
The Director of Application Development should have a proven track record of delivering on commitments, building strong business relationships, and developing and retaining top talent.
This position reports to the AVP of Application Development .
Key Responsibilities
•Partnering with IT Management, the Director of Strategic Programs, and IT Sr. Staff, is responsible for the development and delivery of software solutions to support Arbella’s Business Objectives.
•Manages a team of Application Portfolio Managers containing Managers, Developers and Business Analysts responsible for building, maintaining, and upgrading Arbella software applications.
•Direct the development and implementation of software solutions across all business portfolios.
•Establish standards for requirements, design, construction, testing and implementation of software applications.
•Practice regular reviews of application lifecycle currency and building plans to address risk.
•Partners with IT Sr. Staff to build 3-year plans and budgets that align with Arbella Business Plans.
•Aids IT Sr. Staff in the review of executive level presentations and reporting.
•Partners with IT and Legal in execution, negotiation, and renewal of complex vendor contracts for software subscriptions, support, and staff augmentation.
•Work across IT teams to ensure alignment of application portfolio priorities and resources with project/program timelines.
•Establish strong relationships with executive and senior leadership partners across Arbella business groups to understand their businesses and advise them on technological solutions and options for delivery.
•Partner closely with all members of the IT Leadership Team on portfolio, strategic and operational initiatives, driving results and proactively communicating on progress and direction of key IT projects.
•Develop and manage talent that is supportive of a culture that is energized, engaged, future focused and highly motivated to deliver best-in-class solutions.
•A strong focus on Diversity & Inclusion is necessary.
Requirements:
10+ years of progressive experience in an IT leadership role, including project management, QA, and application development.
Demonstrated success as a senior IT and business leader.
Proven ability to recruit, retain and develop high performing teams with high employee engagement and job satisfaction.
Experience in application development tools, life cycle and QA best practices, as well as project delivery methodologies including agile, PMF, as well as test automation and QA best practices.
Strong technical acumen and an understanding of developer languages, application technologies and systems architecture concepts.
Strong relationship management, strategy development, project management, problem solving and change management skills.
Ability to manage multiple vendor relationships, to ensure the best financial return and value on initial investment and continued maintenance.
Proven thought leadership and ability to leverage deep knowledge of relevant technologies, trends, architectures, and vendors and service providers.
Experience in developing multi-million-dollar departmental and organizational budgets and effectively planning and managing activities within the established constraints of such approved budgets.
Ability to facilitate and lead change at all organizational levels and drive continuous improvement.
Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Hands-on, strategic thinker and proven leader with the ability to drive organizational change.
Bachelor's degree in information systems, computer science or a related field. Master's degree in one of these fields or Business Management preferred.
#LI-CL1
Top Skills
What We Do
Founded in 1988 in Quincy, Massachusetts, Arbella provides affordable car, home, and business insurance in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and business insurance in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Our vision is to be the best property and casualty company in the Northeast. Period. We are proud to be consistently recognized as one of the Best Places to Work by the Boston Business Journal. We think you’ll find Arbella to be a different kind of insurance company – one that does good for our employees, our customers, our independent agents, and our communities. Our people are caring, collaborative, passionate, and involved, and we work hard to support their total well-being.
Arbella is a good place to be. Come explore what it can be for you.
Arbella. Here. For Good.
