Software Engineer III

About The Job

As a Software Engineer III in Finance & Risk, you'll be contributing development and enhancement of our Controllers and Financial Accounting platforms, helping build the future of our financial technology. We work in a fast-paced and highly collaborative environment, embrace out-of-box thinking, instill engineering excellence, and focus on the highest priorities. We strive to foster safe spaces for our teams to share bold ideas, embrace experimentation, and continuous learning. As a member of our engineering team, you will be finding innovative ways to develop resilient, sustainable, secure, and scalable solutions to create an exemplary experience for our user base while utilizing agile practices. As part of the test-centric software engineering culture at Northwestern Mutual, we are seeking a software engineer skilled in ETL and data engineering-experienced in designing scalable, reliable data pipelines and committed to writing testable, production-ready code. We need someone who has experience with full stack solutions, working Dev Ops exposure, and can contribute meaningfully to designing and integrating with API infrastructure. You should have experience building data pipelines and working with cloud-based solutions that mine data and combine it with modern analytic tools. Prior experience supporting vendor applications like Oracle's PeopleSoft is a plus. Bring Your Best!

What You'll Do

• Designs, implements, tests, and maintains full-stack features and services across web and backend systems

• Develops and maintains back-end services and APIs using Java, Spring Boot, and Node.js, including microservices architecture and server-side business logic

• Develops new integrations with APIs and incorporates event-driven design patterns

• Collaborates with product managers, designers, QA, and other engineers to define requirements and deliver high-quality solutions

• Ensures code quality through unit/integration testing, code reviews, and continuous integration; champions unit test code coverage and fosters engineering excellence

• Deploys, operates, and troubleshoots applications in AWS cloud environments; contributes to DevOps and risk remediation efforts

• Optimizes application performance, scalability, and reliability; proactively identifies technical debt and proposes improvements

• Ensures production stability, monitoring, and root cause analysis for assigned products

• Leverages modern stack capabilities to help transform legacy processes and applications, contributing to target state architecture and adoption of integrated tech stacks

• Contributes to team standards, best practices, and architecture discussions within the department

• Supports strong requirements gathering and documentation efforts

• Maintains and evolves data models and database access patterns for SQL and NoSQL systems; ensures data integrity and performance

• Exhibits an appetite for continuous learning and improvement

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience, with full-stack responsibilities

• Proven track record of successfully designing and delivering impactful technology solutions

• Demonstrated critical thinking, ownership mindset, and continuous learning

• Experience developing and delivering solutions using agile methods

• Solid back-end development experience in Java (preferably with Spring Boot or similar frameworks) and Node.js

• Experience building and consuming RESTful APIs; familiarity with GraphQL

• Practical experience with AWS cloud platforms and services, deploying and operating services

• Experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, Aurora Postgres) and knowledge of NoSQL databases (e.g., DynamoDB, Redshift)

• Proficient with version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing practices

• Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and performance tuning skills

• Excellent communication skills and ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams

• Solid understanding of design patterns and architecture

• Ability to effectively communicate to both technical and non-technical audiences

• Successfully deals with ambiguity

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)

• Familiarity with serverless architectures and cloud-native patterns (AWS Lambdas, AWS Glue)

• Knowledge of end-to-end testing (Cypress, Playwright)

• Experience with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK stack)

• Background in event-driven architectures, messaging systems (Kafka), or streaming (AWS Kinesis)

• Experience with data tools such as Databricks, Airflow, or Informatica

• Exposure to financial accounting platforms

• AWS Cloud Developer/Admin Certification

Skills You Have

Analytical Thinking: Organizes and compares various aspects of a situation to comprehend and identify key or underlying complex issues through the use of quantitative data and analysis; leverages strong business acumen, problem solving, and interpersonal skills to think critically about situations from multiple perspectives and consistently seeks ways to improve processes.

Application Security: Introduces security standards during application development and implements security procedures to protect applications in production. Utilizes knowledge to implement authentication for applications that contain sensitive data. Ensures that no PII/PCI information is logged. Conducts PenTest for external facing apps.

Business Application: Utilizes both business acumen and technology expertise to translate business requirements/capabilities into technical solutions, and applies technical knowledge of a product/platform/application to align it with a particular line of business (LOB) based on the organization's technology needs and business goals.

Cloud Technology: Applies knowledge of cloud service platforms and delivery models to support, develop, adopt, secure, implement and evaluate end-to-end cloud solutions delivery and data storage instead of through traditional physical servers in a back office.

Data Literacy: Utilizes appropriate data for a particular purpose by thinking critically about information yielded by data analysis; applies data analytics tools/methods and their appropriate purposes and recognizes when data is being misrepresented to resolve issues or escalate to the appropriate party.

DevOps: Applies continuous integration and delivery to implement applications and services at a higher velocity.

Software Development: Creates and maintains applications, frameworks, and other software components via designing, programming, testing, and bug fixing; writes and maintains source code for all processes in the software development life cycle and facilitates the automation and orchestration of disparate systems. Leverage TDD (Test Driven Development) and BDD (Behavior Driven Development) methodologies to ensure unit, integration, and end-to-end testing with appropriate level of coverage is met.

Technical Problem Solving: Conducts in-depth analysis of technology needs, issues, and roadblocks within assigned scope, applies best practice based on experience and expertise, explores the "art of possible". Solves problems effectively and gains alignment on the path forward. Defines, understands, and documents what is being solved for.

#LI-Hybrid

Compensation Range:

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We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer who welcomes and encourages diversity in the workforce. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.

Release Management (NM) - Intermediate, Technical Problem Solving (NM) - Intermediate, DevOps (NM) - Intermediate, Application Security (NM) - Intermediate, Cross Functional Partnering & Planning (NM) - Intermediate, Cloud Technology (NM) - Intermediate, IT Strategy (NM) - Beginner, Data Literacy (NM) - Intermediate, Strategic Thinking (NM) - Intermediate, Customer Centricity (NM) - Intermediate, Analytical Thinking (NM) - Intermediate, Business Application (NM) - Intermediate, Learning Agility & Critical Thinking (NM) - Intermediate, Software Problem Solving (NM) - Intermediate, Root Cause Analysis & Decision Quality (NM) - Intermediate, Adaptive Communication (NM) - Advanced, Software Development (NM) - Intermediate, Coaching & Mentoring (NM) - Beginner, Application Performance Management (NM) - Intermediate

We're excited about the potential people bring to Northwestern Mutual. You can grow your career here while enjoying first-class perks, benefits, and our commitment to a culture of belonging.

• Flexible work schedules
• Concierge service
• Comprehensive benefits
• Employee resource groups