Guidewire Platform Consultant

At Allstate, great things happen when our people work together to protect families and their belongings from life's uncertainties. And for more than 90 years our innovative drive has kept us a step ahead of our customers' evolving needs. From advocating for seat belts, air bags and graduated driving laws, to being an industry leader in pricing sophistication, telematics, and, more recently, device and identity protection.

Job Description

Who is Allstate:

Allstate Insurance Company of Canada is a leading home and auto insurer focused on providing its customers prevention and protection products and services for every stage of life. The company is proud to have been named a Best Employer in Canada for nine consecutive years and prioritizes supporting employees and fostering an inclusive, welcoming corporate culture. Allstate is committed to making a positive difference in the communities in which it operates through partnerships with charitable organizations, employee giving and volunteerism. Serving Canadians since 1953, Allstate strives to provide reassurance with its "You're in Good Hands®" promise.

• Flexible Work Arrangements
• Employee discounts (15% on auto and property insurance, plus many other products and services)
• Good Office program (receive up to $400 back after purchasing office equipment)
• Student Loan Payment Matching Program for Government Student loans
• Comprehensive Retirement Savings Program with employer matched contributions
• Annual Wellness allowance to support employees with improving health and wellbeing
• Personal reflection day
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Working within the community and giving back

• Guidewire InsuranceSuite Leadership: Lead the end-to-end design, configuration, and customization of Guidewire PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and ClaimCenter solutions to meet business requirements. Serve as the in-house expert on all InsuranceSuite modules, ensuring cohesive architecture and integration across policy administration, billing, and claims functions.

• Solution Design & Development: Develop and review high-quality code and configurations, implementing complex business rules and workflows using Gosu (Guidewire's JVM-based language) and Java. Establish coding standards and best practices for Guidewire development (including Gosu best practices, PCF screen configurations, and integration approaches) to maintain consistency and performance.

• Technical Architecture & Best Practices: Drive the technical architecture and strategic roadmap of the Guidewire platform, making decisions on configuration vs. customization and ensuring the system's design adheres to Guidewire best practices and performance guidelines. Optimize the platform's architecture for scalability, reliability, and security, aligning with enterprise IT standards and the insurance industry's evolving needs.

• Guidewire Cloud & AWS Management: Oversee Guidewire Cloud environments and related AWS infrastructure, ensuring efficient deployment, monitoring, and maintenance of the core systems. Work closely with DevOps teams to manage CI/CD pipelines and environment configurations for cloud deployments, leveraging AWS services and Guidewire Cloud tools to enable rapid, safe delivery of updates.

• Integration & Platform Extensibility: Guide the integration of Guidewire modules with external systems and services. Define and implement integration strategies (SOAP/REST APIs, messaging, middleware) to connect PolicyCenter/BillingCenter/ClaimCenter with third-party applications (e.g. payment gateways, document management, data warehouses). Ensure data consistency and process flow across the enterprise ecosystem, utilizing tools like MuleSoft or Kafka as needed for robust integrations.

• Business Collaboration & Requirements Alignment: Act as a trusted advisor to business stakeholders in underwriting, claims, billing, and product management. Collaborate with business, Managing/Lead Engineer, DPM/Lead DPM to translate business requirements into effective Guidewire configurations and workflows, leveraging out-of-the-box capabilities of the platform to minimize custom code. Provide guidance on how product features (e.g. new insurance coverages or billing plans) can be implemented within Guidewire's framework, ensuring solutions meet customer and business needs.

• Regulatory Compliance & Canadian Insurance Expertise: Ensure that the Guidewire platform configuration and enhancements comply with Canadian P&C insurance regulatory standards and local market practices. Incorporate knowledge of the Canadian insurance landscape (e.g. provincial regulations, bilingual policy documentation requirements, industry-standard forms) into system design so that policy, billing, and claims processes meet all compliance and reporting obligations.

• Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing: Provide strong technical leadership and mentorship to internal development teams. Coach and train developers on Guidewire development techniques, GOSU programming, and InsuranceSuite configuration, enabling the team to grow their expertise. Conduct code reviews and design reviews, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning. Empower internal IT staff through knowledge transfer, with the goal of building self-sufficiency in managing and extending the Guidewire platform.

• Stakeholder Communication: Communicate complex technical concepts in clear, accessible terms to senior management and non-technical stakeholders. Prepare and present strategic recommendations for leveraging Guidewire capabilities to improve business outcomes (e.g. faster claims processing, enhanced customer experience, new product offerings). Act as the liaison to Guidewire Inc. and implementation partners when needed, managing those relationships and keeping the organization informed about product roadmaps, new features, and opportunities to further exploit the platform.

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (advanced degree or relevant certifications an asset). 10+ years of experience in enterprise software development with at least 8+ years dedicated to Guidewire InsuranceSuite implementation and configuration in a developer or architect capacity. Prior role as a Guidewire Technical Lead or Architect on a major implementation program is a plus.

• Guidewire Module Expertise: Proven hands-on expertise across Guidewire's core modules - PolicyCenter, ClaimCenter, and BillingCenter - including multiple full-cycle implementations or upgrades. In-depth understanding of each module's capabilities and how they interconnect as part of the InsuranceSuite.

• Digital Modules: Familiarity with Guidewire Digital products and portals (e.g. CustomerEngage, ProducerEngage) and the Jutro UI framework. Experience integrating or configuring digital front-end components with the core Guidewire back-end is an advantage.Programming & Configuration Skills: Strong proficiency in Gosu programming (Guidewire's primary language) and Java. Ability to write and optimize Gosu code and Guidewire configurations (rules, event-driven logic, PCF screen layouts, data model extensions) following best practices. Experience integrating Guidewire with Java-based frameworks and external APIs is essential.

• GW Certification: Guidewire ACE Status (Lastet cloud credentials) in one or more modules of the InsuranceSuite is highly desired, demonstrating mastery of Guidewire development best practices and performance tuning. At minimum, candidates should hold multiple Guidewire certifications (Associate/Specialist/Professional) across PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and ClaimCenter tracks.

• Guidewire Cloud & AWS Experience: In-depth experience with Guidewire Cloud deployments or cloud-hosted Guidewire environments. Knowledge of the Guidewire Cloud Platform architecture and familiarity with AWS cloud services used by Guidewire (such as AWS infrastructure for scalability and resilience). Ability to manage environments, plan upgrades, and utilize cloud tools for logging, monitoring, and performance management.

• Architecture & Integration: Strong knowledge of Guidewire's architecture and integration mechanisms. Experience designing integration solutions between Guidewire modules and external systems (policy admin portals, legacy systems, third-party data providers). Proficiency with web services (SOAP, REST), messaging queues, and integration platforms; able to ensure data integrity and efficient process flow across integrated systems.

• Insurance Domain Knowledge: Solid understanding of Property & Casualty insurance processes and products. Expertise in the Canadian insurance landscape is required - including familiarity with personal and commercial lines products, provincial regulatory frameworks, and industry standards in Canada. This includes awareness of how local regulations impact policy rating, forms, claims handling, and reporting. P&C Domain credentials such as CIP/FCIP are preferred.

• Leadership & Communication: Demonstrated ability to lead technical teams and projects. Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to business leaders and to produce clear documentation/diagrams for solutions. Proven experience in mentoring developers or analysts and driving adoption of best practices across teams. A track record of influencing stakeholders and driving consensus between technical and business groups is important.

• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, especially in troubleshooting Guidewire application issues, performance bottlenecks, or integration challenges. Able to remain calm under pressure and methodical in diagnosing and resolving critical production problems to maintain business continuity.

• Change Management: Experience in organizational change management related to core system transformation. Ability to help plan user training, adoption strategies, and ensure business readiness when rolling out new Guidewire capabilities.

• Engineering Excellence
  • Infuses simplification and reuse as a foundation for solutioning
  • Influences architectural standards based on engineering learnings
  • Pragmatically balances architecture north star against digital product needs and speed to market
  • Leads and displays engineering mindset, leveraging practical coding skills/ability to drive simple solutions and achieve intended outcomes
  • Ability to pair with engineers as needed
  • Active participant incident responses and root cause analysis in partnership with Managing Engineer
• Proficiency in Outcome-based Iterative Delivery
  • Expert in facilitating discovery & framing sessions along with other key ceremonies in partnership with Digital Product Managers
  • Strong bias for speed to market, advocating for paths to reuse capabilities and minimize the need to code to validate hypothesis
  • Expert in breaking down North star vision into actionable hypotheses and advocates for quick iterative test & learn cycles.
• Strategic, Design & Systems Thinking
  • Drives design thinking absolutes inclusive of lean hypothesis frameworks as part of discovery & framing ceremonies
  • Orchestrates solutioning across digital products in partnership with Managing Engineers
  • Ensures stakeholders stick to problem and opportunity statements not solutions
  • Passionate promotor of emerging technologies and market trends
• Impact & Influence
  • Expert in driving effective root cause analysis and mistake proofing
  • Ability to influence audiences at all levels
  • Uplifts and supports development, impact, and growth of platform consultant community
  • Uses personality to run effective ceremonies, pushes back and influences with grace and skill
  • Subject matter expert related to the consumer journey/business process and the influence of technology
  • Skillfully applies emotional intelligence to gain trust and influence across Digital Product Managers and Managing Engineers
  • Ability to effectively identify and skillfully stop workstreams that do not appropriately fit within strategy or value being pursued