Manager Information Technology

This position will be hybrid out of either Springfield, IL or Plano, TX. It is not a remote position.

Horace Mann is seeking an experienced and strategic IT Manager to lead a critical development team within IT who will be instrumental in maintaining application stability and efficiency, driving continuous improvement, and aligning business priorities with technical excellence. The IT Manger is expected to possess a strong technical background, deep understanding of business needs, and exceptional decision-making skills to evaluate and prioritize requests that maximize business value.

This role requires someone who is highly organized, confident in making firm prioritization decisions, and skilled in communicating trade-offs to stakeholders. The manager must be able to navigate competing demands, align technology work with business strategic goals, and create a structured approach to application system support and incremental enhancements.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Management:

Lead, mentor, and empower application development team responsible for support, defect resolution, and system enhancements, upgrades and conversions.

• Ensure cross-team collaboration, fostering a shared understanding of priorities, dependencies, and technical solutions.

• Create and uphold accountability structures to ensure work is completed efficiently and with high quality.

• Drive a culture of ownership, problem-solving, and continuous learning.

Technical & Business Understanding:

• Serve as the bridge between technology teams and business stakeholders, ensuring both sides understand priorities, constraints, and impacts.

• Provide guidance on best practices for system stability, scalability, and continuous improvement.

Stakeholder Communication & Expectation Management:

• Set firm but fair expectations with business stakeholders, ensuring they understand how and why prioritization decisions are made.

• Provide regular updates on progress, challenges, and key outcomes related to support and enhancements.

• Communicate realistic timelines, risks, and trade-offs when managing requests.

Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or equivalent experience.

Experience:

• 3+ years of experience in IT leadership, with a focus on managing developers, operations, technical support, and system enhancements.

• Proven track record of making strategic prioritization decisions that drive business value.

• Strong background in technical support, bug resolution, and application enhancement.

Skills & Competencies

Technical & Business Expertise:

• Strong understanding software development lifecycles, and IT support models coinciding with business needs.

• Ability to translate business requirements into technical requirements and development prioritization.

• Familiarity with modern ticketing systems (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps) and IT service management best practices.

• Proficiency in leveraging generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or similar to enhance development workflows.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Insurance Product Knowledge- Annuities, Life, IUL, Supplemental Health, Group Health and Group Life

• Development Experience- Main Frame, C#, SSIS, SSRS, Java,SQL

Pay Range:

$99,100.00 - $146,050.00

Salary is commensurate to experience, location, etc.

#LI-NW1

Horace Mann was founded in 1945 by two Springfield, Illinois, teachers who saw a need for quality, affordable auto insurance for teachers. Since then, we’ve broadened our mission to helping all educators protect what they have today and prepare for a successful tomorrow. And with our broadened mission has come corporate growth: We serve more than 4,100 school districts nationwide, we’re publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol: HMN) and we have more than $12 billion in assets.

We’re motivated by the fact that educators take care of our children’s future, and we believe they deserve someone to look after theirs. We help educators identify their financial goals and develop plans to achieve them. This includes insurance to protect what they have today and financial products to help them prepare for their future. Our tailored offerings include special rates and benefits for educators.

EOE/Minorities/Females/Veterans/Disabled. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status

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