Associate Director, Data Platform (Application Development)

About the Opportunity

AIA Singapore is looking for a senior engineering leader to shape its application development and data platform strategy. The role focuses on building secure, scalable platform capabilities and strengthening engineering standards across several delivery teams. The team environment is centered on modern digital products that support the company’s transformation toward faster, simpler, and more connected experiences.

The position combines strategic leadership with hands-on technical depth. The selected person will guide multiple teams building enterprise applications on Java, Python, SQL/Postgres/MS SQL, Kubernetes, and Azure cloud, while also partnering with technology, product, group, and business stakeholders to deliver measurable digital outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

This role covers roadmap definition, architecture direction, delivery oversight, governance, operational excellence, and team leadership. It also requires strong coordination across squads, proactive problem-solving, and the ability to improve delivery speed, resilience, and quality.

Strategic Leadership

• Set the engineering direction and roadmap in line with AIA Singapore’s digital and data priorities.
• Create scalable, secure, and high-performing application designs using cloud-native practices on Azure.
• Put in place engineering standards, governance, DevOps discipline, and quality controls that support security, availability, and operational consistency.
• Track emerging technologies and introduce modern capabilities such as microservices, containers, APIs, DevSecOps, and data engineering methods.

Delivery Ownership

• Lead the delivery of complex, business-critical applications across 5 engineering teams.
• Work with AIA Group, technology teams, and product managers to plan and execute the delivery roadmap.
• Make sure teams deliver solutions that are scalable, maintainable, and completed within agreed timelines.
• Clear obstacles, improve engineering workflows, and strengthen speed, stability, and reliability through continuous improvement.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Act as the main contact for business teams and convert business outcomes into measurable commitments such as SLAs, KPIs, and delivery timelines.
• Manage prioritization and backlog flow across multiple squads while balancing regulatory needs, business requests, and technical debt.
• Promote product-style ownership with clear contracts, service levels, versioning, and standard documentation such as API specifications and data dictionaries.

Governance, Risk, and Compliance

• Ensure alignment with relevant regulatory requirements, including MAS TRM, cyber hygiene, records retention, audit readiness, and evidence gathering.
• Oversee access controls and API policy management, including rate limits, quotas, consumer onboarding, keys, and secrets.

Operational Excellence

• Define and track SLAs for availability, performance, and reliability.
• Introduce automation and monitoring to support efficient operations and reduce downtime.
• Manage capacity planning, budget oversight, cost forecasting, platform utilization, and infrastructure cost optimization.

People Leadership

• Lead and develop a high-performing group of platform engineers, leads, and API developers.
• Build a culture of customer focus, accountability, and continuous improvement while mentoring managers and senior individual contributors.
• Create talent pipelines, succession plans, and external delivery partnerships with vendors, system integrators, and managed services providers.

Requirements

• A degree from a recognized university in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or an equivalent field.
• At least 12 years of total experience, including 10+ years in hands-on software development with strong skills in Java, Python, microservices, SQL, relational database design, Kubernetes, containerization, and cloud-native development.
• At least 8 years of engineering leadership experience leading multiple technical teams or large engineering organizations.
• Experience building enterprise systems with strong scalability, performance, and availability.
• Ability to think architecturally and make sound technical decisions.
• Capacity to influence stakeholders across business, technology, and group teams.
• Experience coaching engineering managers and senior engineers.
• Insurance or financial services exposure is beneficial but not required.
• Comfortable staying hands-on and working closely with engineers on architecture, design, and code-level issues when needed.
• Strong leadership presence with the ability to motivate teams.
• A growth mindset and willingness to keep learning and adopting new tools and methods.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and problem-solving ability.
• Interest in building a durable engineering culture, not only managing delivery.

Eligibility and Other Information

This opportunity is open to candidates who can take ownership of a senior engineering leadership role in Singapore. Applicants must provide all requested personal data for their application to be considered. Any missing or inaccurate information may affect the processing and outcome of the application. All submitted details must be current and accurate.

AIA’s broader mission is to help people live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives, and the company values clarity, courage, humanity, diversity, inclusion, and continuous growth.

About AIA

For more than 100 years, AIA has supported customers across Asia-Pacific through changing needs and expectations. The organization is evolving to become faster, simpler, and more connected, with a focus on creating stronger experiences for customers and communities. Employees are encouraged to build better skills, stronger relationships, and a larger positive impact through their work.