Engineering Tech Lead, UnderwriteMe
Rules Engine
2+ days a week in office
Building software products for the life insurance market
Be an early applicant
Building software products for the life insurance market
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
2+ days a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
Using tech to ensure everyone who wants life insurance can access it.
Role
Who you are
- A proactive leader who enjoys solving complex problems and improving team processes
- Someone who values collaboration and can work effectively across engineering, product, and business teams
- A mentor who is passionate about developing talent, enabling engineers to take ownership and grow
- A strong communicator who can explain technical concepts to different audiences and drive alignment
- A pragmatic problem solver who balances technical excellence with delivering business value
- A person who thrives in fast-paced, iterative environments, continuously seeking ways to improve development speed and feedback loops
- Strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot, with a deep understanding of modern cloud-native, SaaS applications
- Experience leading teams in Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and Helm
- Expertise in AWS cloud services and designing scalable cloud-based systems
- Hands-on experience with CI/CD, DevOps practices, and improving release processes
Desirable
- Experience with frontend technologies (React, TypeScript) to understand full-stack considerations
- Familiarity with performance optimisation and cost reduction strategies in cloud environments
What the job involves
- We are looking for a Tech Lead to join us to lead the development of the Underwriting Engine within the Decision Platform product
- The role of Tech Lead at UnderwriteMe is a combination of hands-on technical expertise and people leadership
- You will report into the Director of Engineering for Decision Platform, being part of the technical leadership team for the Decision Platform product
- The Underwriting Engine is a key part of our software offering allowing insurers to design rules to help with their customer journey, underwriting and claim processes
- The Underwriting Engine team is a cross-functional team are consisting of 6 engineers and a product manager
- Leading a squad of 6 engineers, focused on delivering and improving the Underwriting Engine, ensuring high performance, scalability, and maintainability
- Providing technical leadership, guiding system design decisions, and optimizing our Kubernetes-based architecture
- Leading and evolving the team's ways of working, ensuring effective collaboration, alignment, and continuous improvement in how work is planned, executed, and delivered
- Working with product and your teams product manager to ensure the most important things hit the roadmap. We’re in this for the long run and we need to prioritise new features against improving our technology and reducing the friction from support
Salary benchmarks
Our take
UnderwriteMe was founded in 2012 to shake up the UK insurance sector. At the time, life insurance underwriting was an inefficient process typified by a fractured market, slow processes, and non-standardised evidence. UnderwriteMe released its Underwriting Engine which untangled and greatly accelerated the process, allowing it to grow to become the leading provider of insurance tech products across Europe, Asia, and North America.
As a tech-first company, UnderwriteMe has continued to develop its product, innovating to remain at the forefront of the insurance tech sector. It has moved into AI, with its Text Mining Lab that uses natural language processing to read unstructured medical reports and automatically convert them into usable data. It has also formed major strategic partnerships to improve the product, one example being with United Healthcare Group, allowing medical screening requests to be sent electronically. This further shortens the underwriting decision-making process for users of the platform.
Its focus on innovation and strategic partnerships has yielded success, generating significant buzz in the insurance sector and more than 50% year-on-year growth. Moving ahead it will continue to develop its product, doubling down on AI-augmented decision-making tools to further increase the efficiency of the underwriting process.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Employee endorsements
Career progression
"Still being fairly small (150 people) and scaling means people can make an impact and be involved in projects, uncover new opportunities and..."
Company benefits
- Life Assurance - The Company provides a lump sum benefit payment, 9x salary
- Group Income Protection - The aim is to provide an income to employees if they are unable to work long-term, as a result of an illness or injury. 75% of basic salary
- Private Medical Insurance - Provided for all employees via Bupa Healthcare
- Stakeholder Pension Scheme - Up to 15%. The Company offers a group stakeholder pension to aid employees in planning for their future
- Money towards remote setup - £350 for you to be set up and comfortable working remotely
- Employee Assistance Programme - Providing employees with third-party advice on a variety of topics including mental health
- Subsidised Gym Membership - The company subsidises memberships to any gym of employees' choice
- Enhanced Maternity and Paternity scheme
- Bonus Scheme - based on individual and company performance
- 30 days a year working remotely - The opportunity to work abroad or from your home country (for those who may have moved country). This can be broken up through the year
- 24/7 GP Consultation - Through the Employee Assistance Programme, WeCare, employees and their families have access to a UK-based GP anytime it's needed
- Cycle 2 Work Scheme - Enables employees to purchase cycling equipment tax-free by paying for it in installments through salary sacrifice deductions
- 25 days holiday plus company closure for wellbeing days (4x extra days off in 2023)
Company values
- Impact Oriented: Driven by meaningful results, prioritising actions that deliver significant outcomes and contribute to team success. Motivated by value creation and business impact, not titles or status.
- Entrepreneurial: Demonstrate initiative and a proactive approach to identifying and seizing the right opportunities. Show resilience in the face of challenges and maintains a bias for action.
- Curiosity: Exhibit a strong desire to learn and understand new concepts. Approach problems with creativity and persistence, consistently seeking effective solutions.
- Technically Great: Possess a deep understanding of relevant technical skills and knowledge applicable to job role . Apply technical expertise effectively to solve complex issues.
- Strategic Thinkers: Demonstrate an understanding of the broader impact of their role and decisions. Effectively balances immediate actions with strategic planning to ensure alignment with medium-term and long-term organisational objectives.
- Adaptability: Open to feedback and willing to learn from others. Show a growth mindset and the ability to adapt and improve.
Company HQ
St Katharine's & Wapping, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
James Tait
(CEO, not founder)Was a Non-Executive Director at UnderwriteMe before stepping up to the CEO position in 2020. Before that was Head of Protection, Europe for UnderwriteMe's parent company, Pacific Life Re.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at UnderwriteMe
Nana (Gyasi)
- Fostering cultural awareness in our organisation
- Enhancing the diversity within our Underwrite Me team
- Reviving our learning curriculum to enhance DE&I knowledge
- Building on our existing affinity groups and DE&I initiatives
- Optimising our hiring practices and removing bias
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