Senior Software/Platform Engineer I

The Opportunity

The MetLife EMEA Technology organization is evolving to enable MetLife’s New Frontier strategy. With a strong vision in place, we are a function focused on driving digital technology strategies for key technology functions within MetLife including. In partnership with our business leaders, we develop and deliver seamless technology experiences to our employees across the entire employee lifecycle. Our vision and mission is to create innovative, transformative and contemporary technology solutions to empower our leaders and employees so they can focus on what matters most, our customers. We are technologists with strong business acumen focused on developing our talent to continually transform and innovate.

We are seeking a highly skilled Sr Software Platform Engineer I, a senior hands-on Full Stack Engineer with React front-end expertise & Python, Java to modernize critical business applications. This mission-critical role is responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, and continuous evolution of core insurance platforms, while contributing to MetLife’s broader digital transformation agenda. The selected candidate will play a key role in designing, developing, maintaining, integrating, and enhancing software solutions within a defined system, platform, or product, based on enterprise standards and processes that promote consistency, reduce risk, and improve operational efficiency. The role requires a hands-on expert with deep technical knowledge, a strong ownership mindset, and the ability to operate effectively in a high-dependency environment where reliability, resilience, and knowledge continuity are essential.

This role may support a single critical application, a defined technology stack, or broader software/platform engineering responsibilities across SaaS, CoTS, and custom-built solutions. The candidate is expected to combine development expertise with strong production support discipline, work as an embedded member of Agile teams, and actively contribute to Agile ways of working. The role places strong emphasis on delivering high-quality engineering outputs through modern development practices, robust unit testing, automation, and the effective use of AI-enabled development tools to improve productivity, quality, and consistency.

Key Responsibilities

• Ensure high availability, performance, and stability of business-critical production systems supporting the Gulf market.
• Take full ownership of assigned systems, including incident resolution, root cause analysis, service request handling, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with business, product, application development, and engineering teams to translate requirements into secure, scalable, and fit-for-purpose technical solutions.
• Support end-to-end delivery, including technical design, development, testing, deployment, implementation, maintenance, and post-production support of application systems.
• Participate in code reviews, system design discussions, architectural decisions, and peer reviews of solution designs, related code, and SaaS or CoTS configurations.
• Lead and support production deployments and critical releases, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations.
• Drive documentation, knowledge transfer, and operational readiness activities to reduce single points of failure and ensure continuity of support.
• Contribute to modernization initiatives, system integration efforts, performance tuning, and optimization of legacy applications and platforms.
• Work as an active member of Agile teams, contributing to Agile ceremonies, user stories, estimations, sprint planning, delivery commitments, retrospectives, and continuous improvement activities.
• Deliver high-quality software outputs by applying modern engineering practices, including comprehensive unit testing, automated testing where applicable, code quality checks, and adherence to agreed Definition of Done standards.
• Leverage approved AI-enabled development tools and modern developer productivity solutions to accelerate delivery, improve code quality, support test generation, and enhance engineering consistency.
• Identify innovative, secure, and practical solutions to technical challenges while balancing operational stability with business value delivery.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience.
• Proven experience in incident management, root cause analysis, and operational ownership of critical systems.
• Prior experience in insurance or financial services technology environments is highly preferred.
• 6-8 years of hands-on software engineering experience.
• Main Skill: Python with React front-end expertise, Java including design, development, testing, deployment.
• Technical Competencies: Hands-on experience in React, Python, Java, application design, system architecture, system integration, data flows, and performance optimization.
• Experience with SDLC development best practices, Java technology delivery, Agile engineering practices, modern unit testing approaches, automated quality checks, and AI-first development approaches such as GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Copilot, and specification-driven development.
• Collaboration
• Communication: Ability to communicate effectively to ensure results are achieved
• Agile Practices
• DevSecOps, CI/CD
• Collaboration Tools
• Product/Business/Industry experience
• Application Design/Architecture
• Understanding of cloud and hybrid architectures, with experience in cloud technologies such as Azure considered an advantage.
• Collaboration: Proven track record collaborating and working effectively in a global and multi-cultural environment
• Diverse environment: Can-do attitude and ability to work in a high paced environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong problem-solving, analytical thinking, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to balance technical innovation with business value delivery.
• Business acumen: A level-headed, clear communicator to gain detailed level of understanding of organizational business requirements and business dynamics.
• Self-motivated and able to work independently in a high-responsibility role with a strong ownership mindset.
• Attention to detail
• Collaborative
• Team Player
• Decisive
• Supportive
• Passionate
• Professional
• Accountable, proactive, quality-focused, and committed to continuous improvement.