Team Leader - Engineering Quality and Security

Why Wellmark: We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we’ve built our reputation on over 80 years’ worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors–our members. If you’re passionate about joining an organization working hard to put its members first, to provide best-in-class service, and one that is committed to sustainability and innovation, consider applying today! 

Why Wellmark Technology? Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work. 

In this formal leadership role, you will manage engineers responsible for maturing Wellmark’s Quality Engineering and Application Security practices across the entire enterprise engineering function. Own the process and SDLC around test plan, strategy from high level EPIC concept to Release.  Leads the strategy, standards, and enablement model for modern testing and secure engineering, ensuring teams have clear patterns, tooling, and guidance to build high-quality, secure software consistently. Establishes enterprise-wide quality practices (test strategy, automation frameworks, test data approaches, coverage expectations, and release quality criteria) and drives adoption through coaching, reusable templates, and community learning. In partnership with security and engineering leadership, embeds secure development practices into day-to-day workflows and CI/CD, leveraging GitHub Advanced Security to operationalize code scanning, secret scanning, and dependency insights. Applies strategic thinking grounded in DevOps and continuous improvement, consulting with senior leaders to align quality and security standards with Wellmark’s strategy and measurable outcomes.

This is an engineering leadership role that enforces quality and security through systems, not checkpoints. 

Preferred: 

• Over 7 years of experience in software engineering, quality engineering, or DevSecOps
• Proven ownership of test strategy across multiple teams/products and SDLC process improvements 
• Hands on experience implementing automated testing frameworks, CI/CD pipelines
• Direct experience with GitHub Advanced Security, CodeQL, Dependency and secret scanning tools. 
• Strong understanding of secure coding practices and vulnerability management 
• Experience embedding security into developer workflows (PR checks, branch protections, and automated policy enforcement. 
• Expereince setting SLA's for security and quality
• Proven experience leading and influencing without authority, challenging engineering teams when needed, and balancing speed vs. risk. 

Required: 

• Bachelor’s degree or direct and applicable work experience. 
• Minimum of 7 years of experience to include any of the combination of the following: AWS Cloud infrastructure management or development; Microsoft Cloud infrastructure management or development; NodeJS, .NET, Python, PowerShell. 
• Leadership typically gained through a combination of project and informal leadership that demonstrates competencies. 
• Strong understanding of DevOps principles, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure as code. 
• Demonstrated ability to be adaptable and adjust effectively to work within new processes, work requirements, etc. 
• Proven experience in implementing change management initiatives. 
• Strong ability to support innovation and creativity by encouraging team(s) to accept and resolve challenges. 
• Strong communication skills - written and verbal with the ability to adapt the message to various audiences. 
• Demonstrates a methodical and logical approach to addressing customer needs while utilizing innovative solutions/designs as appropriate. 
• Self-starter and proactive in approach. 
• Strong collaboration skills with ability to build relationships across Technology division. 
• Strong decision-making skills with the ability to influence and drive change. 
• Ability to think strategically to communicate and accomplish long-range goals. 
• In-depth knowledge of observability tools and practices, such as monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing. 
• Demonstrated experience in defining and implementing coding standards, design patterns, and development processes. 
• Experience generating analytical data for reporting. 
• Proven ability to adapt when experiencing major changes in work tasks or work environment. 
• Knowledge of Agile process and tools 
• Proficiency in HROR highly preferred 

a. Provide leadership and day-to-day management of financial and human resources, primarily focusing on employee coaching, development, performance improvement, coordination and budgeting for staff and department(s) specific functions/services. Support business objectives and produce results that are effective, accurate, and timely and on target to meet HR team and stakeholder needs. 

b. Define and drive the vision for advanced engineering practices across the organization. 

c. Align practices with business goals, regulatory requirements, and delivery outcomes (e.g., DORA metrics, DevEx initiatives). 

d. Develop, document, and evangelize advanced engineering such as Coding standards and code reviews; Test automation (unit, integration, E2E); Continuous Integration/Delivery (CI/CD) best practices; Secure coding and DevSecOps integration; Observability best practices; and AI-assisted engineering guidelines. 

e. Own the strategy, roadmap, and governance of GitHub Enterprise and the internal developer portal, ensure they are optimized for usability, scalability, and team autonomy. 

f. Evaluate and implement modern frameworks and technologies that support advanced engineering. 

g. Own the selection, integration, and adoption of engineering intelligence tools to support data driven decision making and continuous improvement. 

h. Champion developer experience through tooling, process simplification, and platform improvements. 

i. Own coaching programs to mentor engineering teams in advanced engineering, mindset shifts, and effective use of internal platforms. 

j. Lead programs to upskill engineers and engineering leaders on emerging practices and tools. 

k. Run internal workshops to foster shared learning. 

l. Define and track metrics to measure adoption, quality, and impact of engineering practices (e.g., deployment frequency, change failure rate). 

m. Benchmark internal capabilities against industry standards to guide maturity improvements. 

n. Own team(s) responsible for modernization of systems including coding, environments and production support utilizing advanced engineering and AI enhancements and the onboarding and education of how to utilize newly architected system. 

o. Other duties as assigned. 

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

Please inform us if you meet the definition of a "Covered DoD official".

At this time, Wellmark is not considering applicants for this position that require any type of immigration sponsorship (additional work authorization or permanent work authorization) now or in the future to work in the United States. This includes, but IS NOT LIMITED TO: F1-OPT, F1-CPT, H-1B, TN, L-1, J-1, etc. For additional information around work authorization needs please refer to the following resources:Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants 

Wellmark supports and expects the responsible use of AI for our workforce! We welcome the responsible use of these tools by job seekers as well and are interested in learning from you; you will have an opportunity in the application process to share which tools you used and how you applied them.