Lead Software Engineer - Product Builder

About the Job:

This is a hands-on, execution-heavy role within Sun Life's startup-style innovation team focused on rapidly designing, building, and scaling transformative digital products- including an agentic AI platform and new client experience solutions. Reporting to the Director of Engineering, In-House Accelerator, you will own the full product lifecycle from concept to launch, writing production code, making pragmatic architecture decisions, and shipping working software quickly in a regulated environment. This role demands both technical excellence and entrepreneurial ownership, combining the agility of a startup with the resources and impact of a global enterprise. You will build products from zero, deliver them to users, and own the outcomes of your work.

What You’ll Do?

Use AI-assisted development and coding agents to accelerate prototyping, implementation, testing, debugging, and code review without compromising engineering quality.

Make pragmatic technical decisions that balance speed, quality, scalability, and business impact.

Own outcomes. If something isn’t working, you fix it.

Prototype quickly, launch MVPs, run experiments, and validate ideas with real users.

Instrument everything, gather feedback, and iterate based on data.

Write production‑quality code daily while guiding the technical direction of the team.

Establish lightweight architecture and engineering practices that enable speed without chaos.

Provide clear technical leadership through code reviews, design discussions, and mentorship.

Work directly with product managers, designers, and business stakeholders to turn ambiguous problems into working software.

Clearly communicate trade‑offs, risks, and timelines to both technical and non‑technical audiences.

Champion modern engineering practices, tools, and technologies that give us a competitive edge.

Build reusable components and technical foundations that accelerate future products.

7–10 years of hands-on engineering experience, with recent, demonstrable coding work.

Demonstrated experience using AI-assisted development tools as part of day-to-day software development, with strong practices for prompting, code review, testing, security, and validating AI-generated code.

Experience designing and building microservices , APIs, and distributed systems that scale.

You think in terms of user value , not just technical elegance.

You’re comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and adjusting as you learn.

You bias toward action, experimentation, and learning over perfection.

Hands‑on experience deploying and operating software in the cloud (AWS, Azure).

Comfortable with CI/CD, containers, and shipping code to production frequently.

A solid handle on performance, observability, security, and resilient system design.

Proven ability to influence technical direction without relying on hierarchy.

Experience mentoring engineers and raising the bar through example.

Strong communication skills. You can explain complex systems simply and persuasively.

Nice to Have:

Experience in startups, accelerators, or innovation labs.

Experience with AI/ML systems → building with LLMs, prompt engineering, or agentic architectures.

Why This Role?

High-Impact Work: Build products that directly shape Sun Life's future, with your code reaching real users quickly.

Leadership Opportunity: Lead technical direction, mentor others, and shape the engineering culture of a growing team.

Autonomy and Ownership: Make decisions, drive solutions, and see the direct impact of your work.

Learn and Grow Fast: Exposure to new technologies, business problems, and the full product lifecycle in a compressed timeframe.

Collaborative, Innovative Culture: Work with passionate, talented people who move fast and support each other.

Flexible Workstyle: Hybrid or office-based as required by the role.

What’s in it for you?

Being a member of the Sun Life family, a group of people united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.

An environment of continuous learning, development, and improvement.

Internal mobility is supported by leaders who are dedicated to fueling your professional growth.

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.