Lead Full Stack Engineer

As a Lead Full Stack Engineer you will shape the technical direction for your area lead complex engineering programs across multiple teams and establish standards for how solutions are designed built tested and operated. You will deliver secure reliable and user-centred solutions that support business objectives while translating business strategy into architectural and delivery decisions.

In this role you will be accountable for outcomes beyond your own deliverables including the technical quality and coherence of solutions developed by others. You will lead initiatives from concept through production support make informed decisions where no established precedent exists and influence senior technology and business leaders. Success requires recognized technical depth sound judgement in ambiguous situations and a genuine commitment to mentoring engineers and raising engineering standards.

Position Responsibilities:

• Set the technical direction for the design development testing delivery and continuous improvement of full-stack business applications.
• Lead the design of user interfaces databases APIs and server-side logic ensuring coherent end-to-end architecture.
• Establish disciplined coding practices design patterns automation and semantic versioning standards that enable agility and high-quality delivery at scale.
• Create and review detailed system design specifications that guide development across multiple workstreams and teams.
• Define automated testing strategies and quality gates to ensure solutions meet established standards and user requirements.
• Direct investigative spikes to reduce technical uncertainty and risk and make the resulting architectural decisions.
• Lead root-cause analysis for complex cross-system defects and drive systemic improvements in efficiency reliability and maintainability.
• Own the technical debt and modernization roadmap for the area and build support for the investment needed to deliver it.
• Facilitate ideation prototyping and design sessions documenting decisions and outcomes.
• Set documentation standards for architecture decision records runbooks deployment maintenance and support while ensuring effective knowledge transfer.
• Lead peer-review practices and mentor engineers at different career levels to strengthen technical capability across the organization.
• Represent the teams technical position in architecture forums and with senior stakeholders and governance bodies.
• Required Qualifications:
• 10 years of experience as a Full Stack Software Engineer including demonstrated experience leading technical delivery across multiple teams and owning solutions from design through production support.
• Expertise in a significant range of the technologies listed below with working knowledge across others. Candidates are not expected to have experience with every item; recognized depth in several areas and sound judgement in selecting appropriate technologies are most important.
• Languages and runtimes: Java TypeScript JavaScript Python C# .NET and SQL.
• Back-end frameworks: Spring Boot Spring Security Spring Data JPA/Hibernate and NestJS or .
• Front-end development: React micro-frontends enterprise component or design libraries CSS Tailwind SCSS and React state management and data fetching.
• Architecture and design: Distributed systems event-driven and asynchronous patterns domain-driven design API lifecycle and versioning and resilience and failure-mode design.
• Integration and APIs: Microservices REST APIs/OpenAPI Backend-for-Frontend Azure API Management and Azure Event Hubs or Service Bus.
• Data and storage: Microsoft SQL Server Azure SQL Azure Cosmos DB or MongoDB Redis Flyway or similar database migration tooling and data modelling at scale.
• Cloud and platform: Microsoft Azure Kubernetes/AKS Docker and containers Terraform and Helm or Kustomize.
• Build and CI/CD: Maven or Gradle npm or pnpm Git/GitHub GitHub Actions and release and change management.
• Testing and quality: JUnit Jest or Vitest Playwright or Selenium Bruno or REST Assured SonarQube and test strategy definition.
• Security and identity: OAuth 2.0 OIDC JWT OWASP secure coding dependency and CVE management tools such as Snyk PII and data protection and threat modelling.
• Observability: New Relic or Application Insights structured logging and tracing and SLI/SLO definition.
• AI-assisted engineering: GitHub Copilot or equivalent tools prompt and context engineering and responsible-use standards.
• Proven experience defining application and service architecture and influencing architectural decisions beyond your immediate team.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex technical programs across multiple teams with competing priorities and interdependencies.
• A track record of establishing engineering standards or best practices adopted beyond your immediate squad.
• Experience mentoring and supporting the growth of engineers including senior engineers.
• Deep knowledge of Agile and DevOps principles with practices that emphasize testing continuous integration and rapid safe releases.
• Expert-level foundation in data structures algorithms and object-oriented design.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain technical vision options trade-offs and outcomes to engineers senior stakeholders and non-technical audiences.
• Sound judgement and accountability when making consequential decisions with incomplete information.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Front-end and digital experience: and Adobe Experience Manager.
• Back-end and eventing: Spring Batch Spring Cloud/Integration Azure Functions and JMS.
• Data and analytics: Databricks/Spark Azure Data Factory ETL and data pipelines Azure Storage KQL and Azure Data Explorer.
• Platform and infrastructure as code: Flux/GitOps Istio service mesh Azure Key Vault and Azure networking DNS or WAF.
• Legacy integration: z/OS Connect DB2 batch file/SFTP integration mainframe-fronting and strangler patterns.
• Quality and security tooling: Xray test management performance and load testing and chaos or resilience testing.
• Advanced AI engineering: Agentic development workflows LLM application patterns evaluation and guardrail design.
• Experience leading a platform migration decommissioning initiative or large-scale modernization program.
• Experience evaluating and selecting vendors platforms or strategic tools.
• Experience working in a regulated environment with awareness of audit control and compliance obligations.
• Contributions to the broader technical community through internal guilds or chapters conference presentations open-source work or published writing.
• Formal architecture accreditation or equivalent demonstrated capability.

When you join our team:

• Well empower you to learn and grow the career you want.
• Well recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.
• As part of our distributed team well support you in shaping the future you want to see.

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us visit is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment retention advancement and compensation and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race ancestry place of origin colour ethnic origin citizenship religion or religious beliefs creed sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions) sexual orientation genetic characteristics veteran status gender identity gender expression age marital status family status disability or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process contact .

Referenced Salary Location

Salary range is expected to be between

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge skills qualifications experience and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location please contact for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits including health dental mental health vision short- and long-term disability life and AD&D insurance coverage adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays vacation personal and sick days and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S. please contact for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automated processing tools to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information please refer to our personal information collection statement.