Job Family
IT - Development
At Transamerica, hard work, innovative thinking, and personal accountability are qualities we honor and reward. We understand the potential of leveraging the talents of a diverse workforce. We embrace an environment where employees enjoy a balance between their careers, families, communities, and personal interests.
Ultimately, we appreciate the uniqueness of a company where talented professionals work collaboratively in a positive environment — one focused on helping people look forward and plan for the best life possible while providing tools and solutions that make it easier to get there.
We believe everyone deserves to live their best life. More than a century ago, we were among the first financial services companies in America to serve everyday people from all walks of life.
Today, we’re part of an international holding company, with millions of customers and thousands of employees worldwide. Our insurance, retirement, and investment solutions help people make the most of what’s important to them.
We’re empowered by a vast agent network covering North America, with diversity to match. Together with our nonprofit research institute and foundation, we tune in, step up, and are a force for good — for our customers and the communities where we live, work, and play. United in our purpose, we help people create the financial freedom to live life on their terms.
Transamerica is organized into three distinct businesses. These include 1) World Financial Group, including Transamerica Financial Advisors, 2) Protection Solutions and Savings & Investments, comprised of life insurance, annuities, employee benefits, retirement plans, and Transamerica Investment Solutions, and 3) Financial Assets, which includes legacy blocks of long term care, universal life, and variable and fixed annuities. These are supported by Transamerica Corporate, which includes Finance, People and Places, General Counsel, Risk, Internal Audit, Strategy and Development, and Corporate Affairs, which covers Communications, Brand, and Government and Policy Affairs.
Transamerica employs nearly 7,000 people. It’s part of Aegon, an integrated, diversified, international financial services group serving approximately 23.9 million customers worldwide.* For more information, visit transamerica.com.
Job Description Summary
The Principal Software Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for defining and driving enterprise-scale architecture, engineering strategy, and delivery excellence across modern web platforms. This role operates at a systems and organizational level—designing, influencing, and governing solutions that span multiple teams and domains—while ensuring the development of secure, scalable, resilient, and high-performing applications using TypeScript, React, and Node.js deployed on cloud platforms.
As a recognized technical authority, the Principal Engineer leads through influence, elevates engineering maturity, and establishes standards that enable consistent, high-quality delivery at scale. This role also champions the effective adoption of AI-assisted engineering to accelerate delivery, improve code quality, and standardize practices across the enterprise.
Job Description
Responsibilities:
Enterprise Architecture & Technical Strategy
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Define and evolve enterprise-wide architecture patterns for front-end, API, and cloud-native systems, ensuring alignment with long-term business and technology strategy.
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Lead design of large-scale, distributed, and highly available systems, driving decisions across multiple teams and platforms.
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Establish and govern engineering standards, design principles, and reference architectures for TypeScript/React front ends and Node.js API ecosystems.
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Provide technical leadership in modernization initiatives (e.g., monolith to microservices, API-first, event-driven architectures, cloud-native transformation).
Delivery & Engineering Excellence
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Drive delivery of complex, cross-team initiatives with measurable business outcomes (e.g., scalability improvements, performance gains, cost optimization, reduced lead time).
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Ensure systems are designed for resilience, observability, and operability (logging, monitoring, tracing, SLOs).
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Lead end-to-end system design reviews, architecture governance, and technical decision-making across programs.
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Champion engineering quality at scale, including automated testing strategies, CI/CD maturity, and secure SDLC practices.
Technical Leadership & Influence
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Act as a technical authority and advisor to engineering leadership, product teams, and stakeholders across the organization.
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Mentor and develop senior and staff engineers; raise the bar for technical design, coding standards, and architectural thinking.
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Influence organizational direction through technical roadmaps, platform strategy, and investment recommendations.
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Lead cross-functional collaboration with product, security, infrastructure, and enterprise architecture teams.
Full-Stack & Platform Engineering
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Guide development of enterprise-grade React + TypeScript applications, establishing scalable UI architectures and shared component strategies.
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Architect and oversee Node.js API platforms with emphasis on contract-first design (OpenAPI), versioning strategies, and secure integrations.
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Define patterns for data access, caching, and API performance optimization across relational and NoSQL systems.
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Lead adoption of event-driven and real-time architectures (messaging, streaming, WebSockets) where appropriate.
Cloud & Platform Architecture
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Design and drive adoption of cloud-native architectures (AWS/Azure), including containers, serverless, and platform services.
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Establish scalable patterns for multi-environment deployment, cost optimization, and operational resilience.
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Collaborate with platform teams to define golden paths, reusable frameworks, and shared services.
AI-Assisted Engineering & Innovation
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Lead enterprise adoption of AI-assisted development practices, including code generation, test automation, documentation, and design acceleration.
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Define standards for safe, secure, and governed use of AI tools, ensuring compliance and quality.
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Quantify and drive improvements in developer productivity, code quality, and cycle time through AI-enabled workflows.
Thought Leadership & Continuous Improvement
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Stay at the forefront of emerging technologies, frameworks, and engineering practices and guide their adoption where beneficial.
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Represent engineering in executive discussions, architecture reviews, and strategic planning forums.
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Drive continuous improvement in engineering processes, tooling, and organizational capabilities.
Qualifications:
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Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, math, engineering, or other technical field, or equivalent experience
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Eight years of experience with database design techniques/philosophies, modern distributed applications, and microservices
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Understanding of advanced analytics and machine learning concepts and technology implementations
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Experience with big data and real time streaming analytics processing architecture
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Experience with data warehousing architecture and implementation, including source to target mappings and ETL.
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Technology or platform certifications (e.g. AWS, Microsoft)
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Expertise in coding platforms/frameworks (e.g. .NET/C#, JAVA, OOD, OOP, Functional Programming, Spring Framework, J2EE Development, OOP, Service Oriented Architecture, Dependency Injection, and Core Architecture)
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In-depth knowledge of NoSQL database technologies (e.g. MS Cosmos DB, Apache Cassandra, Amazon DynamoDB)
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Five years of development experience with cloud services (e.g. AWS/Azure) utilizing various support tools (e.g. EC2, ECS, S3, Kinesis, VMs, Blob, Cosmos, Data Factory, SQL Data warehouse, ARM Templates, Event Hubs)
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Expertise in build and deployment tools - (Visual Studio, Git/Bitbucket, Maven, Jenkins, Nexus, SQL Management Studio, Nunit, Ajax)
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Expertise in developing distributed computing (MS HPC, Sagemaker, Spark)
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Eight years of experience with integration and service frameworks (e.g. API Gateways, Apache Camel, Swagger API, Zookeeper, Kafka, messaging tools, microservices)
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Expertise with Microservices and REST based API development (e.g. Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Entity Framework, IIS, Swagger, Odata, .NET API 2, .NET API Core, AutoMapper)
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Experience leveraging continuous integration/development tools (e.g. Jenkins, Docker, Containers, OpenShift, Kubernetes, and container automation) in a Ci/CD pipeline
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Familiarity with modern frontend development frameworks (Angular, React, Vue.js, ASP.NET MVC, HTTP, HTML, JS, CSS, Ajax)
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Advanced understanding of software development and research tools
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Attention to detail and results oriented, with a strong customer focus
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Ability to work as part of a team and independently
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Analytical and problem-solving skills
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Technical communication skills and the ability to present information to all levels of the organization
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Problem-solving and technical communication skills
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Ability to prioritize workload to meet tight deadlines
Preferred Qualifications:
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Experience with TypeScript/React, Node.js, and APIs
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Knowledge of AI-Assisted Engineering
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Knowledge of the financial services industry
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Experience with enterprise modernization.
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Experience raising the engineering and operational standards.
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Experience coaching engineers in a Scaled Agile environment
- Experience with analytics, ML, or streaming architectures.
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Financial services knowledge.
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Experience with Six Sigma is a plus.
Working Conditions:
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Hybrid - Office Environment (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays)
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Work outside of normal business hours may be required
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Moderate Travel 10 to 25%
This job description is not a contract of employment nor for any specific job responsibilities. The Company may change, add to, remove, or revoke the terms of this job description at its discretion. Managers may assign other duties and responsibilities as needed. In the event an employee or applicant requests or requires an accommodation to perform job functions, the applicable HR Business Partner should be contacted to evaluate the accommodation request.
Compensation:
The Salary for this position generally ranges between $170,000 - $205,000 annually. Please note that the salary range is a good faith estimate for this position and actual starting pay is determined by several factors including qualifications, experience, geography, work location designation (in-office, hybrid, remote) and operational needs. Salary may vary above and below the stated amounts, as permitted by applicable law.
Additionally, this position is typically eligible for an Annual Bonus based on the Company Bonus Plan/Individual Performance and is at the Company’s discretion.
Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.
This is a hybrid position requiring three days in office per week in one of our hub locations (Philadelphia, PA; Cedar Rapids, IA; Denver, CO). Relocation assistance will not be provided for this position.
What We Offer
For eligible employees, we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support both the personal and financial well-being of our employees.
Compensation Benefits
Benefits Package
Health and Work/Life Balance Benefits
Paid Time Off starting at 160 hours annually for employees in their first year of service.
Ten (10) paid holidays per year (typically mirroring the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) holidays).
Be Well Company holistic wellness program, which includes Wellness Coaching and Reward Dollars
Parental Leave – fifteen (15) days of paid parental leave per calendar year to eligible employees with at least one year of service at the time of birth, placement of an adopted child, or placement of a foster care child.
Adoption Assistance
Employee Assistance Program
Back-Up Care Program
PTO for Volunteer Hours
Employee Matching Gifts Program
Employee Resource Groups
Inclusion and Diversity Programs
Employee Recognition Program
Referral Bonus Programs
Inclusion & Diversity
We believe our commitment to diversity and inclusion creates a work environment filled with exceptional individuals. We’re thrilled to have been recognized for our efforts through the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, Dave Thomas Adoption Friendly Advocate, and several Seramount lists, including the Inclusion Index, 100 Best Companies for Working Parents, Best Companies for Dads, and Top 75 Companies for Executive Women.
To foster a culture of inclusivity throughout our workforce, workplace, and marketplace, Transamerica offers a wide range of diversity and inclusion programs. This includes our company-sponsored, employee-driven Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are formed around a shared interest or a common characteristic of diversity. ERGs are open to all employees. They provide a supportive environment to help us better appreciate our similarities and differences and understand how they benefit us all.
Giving Back
We believe our responsibilities extend beyond our corporate walls. That's why we created the Aegon Transamerica Foundation in 1994. Through a mix of financial grants and the volunteer efforts of our employees, the foundation supports nonprofit organizations focused on the things that matter most to our people in the communities where we live and work.
Transamerica’s Parent Company
Aegon acquired the Transamerica business in 1999. Since its start in 1844, Aegon has grown into an international company serving more than 23.9 million people across the globe.* It offers investment, protection, and retirement solutions, always with a clear purpose: Helping people live their best lives. As a leading global investor and employer, the company seeks to have a positive impact by addressing critical environmental and societal issues, with a focus on climate change and inclusion and diversity.
