Technology

Technology leadership at New York Life combines engineering discipline with a strong focus on modernization and business outcomes. The broader Technology, Data, AI & Ventures organization is led by Chief Information Officer Deepa Soni, who oversees enterprise technology, cybersecurity, data and AI. Within engineering, leaders are expected to set long-term technical direction, develop engineering talent and modernize critical systems without sacrificing the security and reliability required in financial services.

• Technology has representation at the highest level of the company: The CIO sits on New York Life’s Executive Management Committee and oversees technology, cyber, data, AI and New York Life Ventures. That gives technology leadership a direct role in broader company strategy rather than positioning engineering solely as a support function.
• Engineering leaders are expected to stay technically credible: Senior engineering leaders remain involved in architectural reviews, emerging-technology evaluation and complex engineering decisions even when they are no longer writing production code. Current leadership roles specifically call for backgrounds that progress from software engineering through architecture and engineering leadership.
• Developing engineers is an explicit leadership responsibility: Technology leaders are responsible for coaching, mentoring and providing performance feedback while strengthening technical expertise and business knowledge. Integrated Solutions leadership roles similarly emphasize developing engineering leaders, architects and senior technical talent while building a culture of continuous learning.
• Leaders are driving a substantial modernization effort: Engineering leadership sets multi-year roadmaps covering cloud-native architecture, microservices, APIs, event-driven systems, containerization, automation and AI-assisted development. Leaders have to balance this modernization with the stability of mission-critical platforms that support New York Life’s insurance, annuity and wealth businesses.
• Technology strategy starts with business problems rather than new tools: New York Life’s current leadership message is that technology and AI investments need to create measurable value for clients, agents, advisors and employees. CIO Deepa Soni has similarly described AI as a way to address business problems that could not previously be solved rather than an end in itself.
• Leaders emphasize collaboration between business and engineering: Current Digital Experience leadership roles require close partnership among development leads, architects, product managers and business stakeholders. Technology leaders are responsible for translating business goals into roadmaps while keeping teams aligned around risks, dependencies and delivery priorities.
• External signals:
  • Software-development employees give management a positive rating: New York Life’s Software Development reviews on Indeed rate management 3.4/5, while employees commonly highlight an inclusive work environment, opportunities to learn and flexibility. (Indeed)
  • A technology lead specifically describes management as supportive: A Tech Lead/Solutions Architect reviewing New York Life on Indeed highlighted supportive management along with strong learning opportunities and work-life balance. (Indeed)
  • New York employees give leadership and managers particularly strong marks: New York Life’s New York workforce rates Leadership 82/100 and Managers 80/100 on Comparably, with both scores placing the company in the top 5% of similarly sized organizations measured by the platform. (Comparably)

Bottom line: Technology leadership at New York Life combines deep engineering experience with responsibility for modernizing a large, complex technology environment. Employees can work with leaders who are expected to understand the technology, develop their teams and connect engineering decisions to the people and businesses those systems ultimately support. 

Work-life balance in New York Life’s Technology organization varies by engineering function, but current roles show meaningful flexibility across the team. Many New York-based engineering positions follow a three-day-per-week hybrid schedule, while several cloud, security and platform roles require office attendance only three days per quarter. New York Life also provides reduced summer hours and family-support benefits designed to give employees additional flexibility outside their regular workweek.

• Hybrid expectations depend on the kind of engineering work: Current Technology openings include three-days-per-week hybrid roles in areas such as quality engineering, analytics engineering and product engineering, while cloud platform, GCP security, Salesforce development and some infrastructure roles are designated hybrid at only three days per quarter. That gives some Technology employees substantially more location flexibility than others.
• Software development teams commonly combine office and remote work: A current Full Stack Developer role supporting Client Central is designated hybrid three days per week and describes a culture that supports both virtual and in-person engagement. Engineers collaborate through Agile planning and periodic in-person work while retaining remote days for focused development.
• Some engineering jobs come with production-support responsibilities: Technology employees who own business-critical systems may participate in on-call rotations. Current full-stack and AWS engineering roles include Level 3 or critical-system on-call support, so work-life patterns can occasionally be affected by production issues depending on the team and platform an employee supports.
• Reliability work can create busier periods: Engineers are responsible for monitoring, troubleshooting and maintaining highly available systems in addition to building new features. That means releases, infrastructure problems or production incidents can sometimes require more attention, particularly for employees working on cloud platforms, databases and other systems that need to remain continuously available.
• Summer Flex Time adds another layer of schedule flexibility: New York Life’s current Technology, Data, AI & Ventures postings advertise reduced working hours during the summer months, specifically positioning the program as time employees can use for themselves and their families.
• Family benefits are designed to support life outside work: Current Technology postings include fertility assistance, paid new-parent benefits, backup childcare and free virtual tutoring. New York Life also describes its hybrid environment as providing flexibility and balance for employees.
• External signals:
  • Software engineers rate work-life balance positively overall: New York Life’s Software Engineer reviews on Indeed give work-life balance a 3.6/5, with time and location flexibility among the aspects employees commonly appreciate. (Indeed)
  • Flexibility also stands out across Software Development reviews: Indeed’s Technology-focused feedback identifies time and location flexibility, an inclusive work environment and opportunities to learn among recurring positives. (Indeed)
  • Technology employees have specifically praised the balance available in their roles: One Tech Lead/Solutions Architect described work-life balance as a particularly strong part of the New York Life experience while also highlighting supportive management and learning opportunities. (Indeed)

Bottom line: Work-life balance in New York Life Technology combines structured hybrid work with considerable flexibility in some cloud, security and platform roles. Engineers working on production systems may occasionally have on-call or incident responsibilities, but remote work options, summer flex hours and family-support benefits give employees several ways to balance demanding technical work with responsibilities outside the job. 

Technology at New York Life has a culture that combines collaboration and continuous learning with the discipline required to build software for a large financial-services company. Engineers work within the Technology, Data, AI & Ventures organization, where software development, cloud, cybersecurity, architecture, data and product teams increasingly work together. The organization emphasizes modernizing systems and experimenting with newer technologies while making sure what gets built is secure, reliable and useful to clients, agents, advisors and employees.

• Engineers are expected to work across team boundaries: Software engineers regularly collaborate with product owners, designers, architects, security teams, data scientists and other engineers throughout development. Cloud Platform Engineering similarly partners across application development, architecture, infrastructure, operations and cybersecurity rather than operating as an isolated infrastructure team.
• Experimentation has a visible place in the culture: New York Life runs employee hackathons specifically to give people opportunities to test ideas, collaborate in new ways and solve real business challenges. NYL Hack 2024 included projects using custom GPTs and other technologies to improve employee experiences and business processes.
• Technology employees get opportunities to see what other teams are building: The Technology, Data, AI & Ventures organization hosted New York Life’s 2025 Innovation Summit, which drew more than 1,200 employees on its first day and featured employee-built solutions alongside sessions from Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, dbt Labs and Tableau. That creates a forum for engineers and other technologists to exchange ideas outside their immediate projects.
• Learning newer technology is becoming part of everyday engineering: Current software roles involve cloud-native architecture, AI-assisted development and emerging agentic AI tools. New York Life has also expanded hands-on AI education across the company; its 2026 Ignite AI Learning Week included Microsoft- and OpenAI-led labs with nearly 3,000 registrations.
• Engineers are encouraged to improve the way development itself works: Current Technology roles emphasize reusable platforms, automation, developer tooling, CI/CD and self-service infrastructure. AI-focused engineers are also using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Claude Code as part of development, while platform teams focus on reducing manual work and improving developer productivity.
• Innovation comes with a strong reliability mindset: Engineers are expected to consider security, resilience, observability, compliance and maintainability alongside speed. That is especially visible in cloud and AI engineering, where teams build new capabilities while embedding governance and security controls into the underlying platforms.
• The culture connects technology to a larger purpose: TDAV describes its mission as building solutions that improve how New York Life serves policy owners, agents, advisors and employees. Rather than adopting technology simply because it is new, current leadership emphasizes using technology and AI where they can solve meaningful business problems and improve human experiences.
• External signals:
  • Technology employees frequently highlight learning and an inclusive environment: Indeed’s Software Development reviews list the ability to learn new things and an inclusive work environment among the aspects employees most commonly appreciate. Culture is rated 3.4/5. (Indeed)
  • Early-career engineers point to the amount of opportunity to learn: A New York-based DevOps engineer intern said coworkers were welcoming and that there were consistently new things to learn and additional projects to take on. (Indeed)

Bottom line: Technology culture at New York Life combines the stability and engineering standards of a large financial institution with an increasing focus on cloud, AI and experimentation. The strongest fit is likely someone who enjoys collaborating across disciplines, continually learning new technologies and building modern systems that still have to meet high standards for security and reliability.

Career growth in New York Life’s Technology organization can take several forms, from progressing as a software engineer to moving into cloud, cybersecurity, architecture, data, AI or engineering leadership. The broader Technology, Data, AI & Ventures organization includes roles from associate developers through senior engineers and enterprise engineering leaders, while New York Life backs that progression with technical learning funds, digital training, mentorship and internal-mobility resources.

• Engineers can build deeper technical careers without staying in one specialty: Current Technology openings span full-stack development, DevOps, Salesforce engineering, data protection, cloud platforms, quality engineering and AI architecture. That breadth gives technologists opportunities to deepen one specialty or build experience in adjacent areas as their interests evolve.
• There is a visible progression from hands-on engineering into technical leadership: Current openings range from associate and senior-associate developers to engineering leads and corporate vice president-level technical positions. Senior leaders are expected to stay current on emerging technology while coaching engineers and developing both technical expertise and business knowledge across their teams.
• Technologists have dedicated funding for outside learning: New York Life’s Technology learning-stipend program allows employees and their managers to select external development programs based on individual needs. Employees can use that support for courses, conferences and professional certifications rather than relying only on internal training.
• Cloud, cybersecurity and other emerging skills have structured learning paths: New York Life’s learning resources include a Cyber Academy and its broader Learning Exchange, while its Technology development programs have supported certifications in areas such as AWS, cloud architecture, Agile, Scrum, Salesforce and other advanced technology skills.
• Early-career technologists can explore several disciplines before specializing: New York Life’s 2027 Technology, Data, AI & Ventures internship program includes seven tracks: software engineering, AI engineering/MLOps, data engineering, platform engineering, security engineering, data science and analyst roles. The structure gives emerging technologists exposure to the range of career paths available within the broader organization.
• Hands-on projects can stretch employees beyond their regular responsibilities: Technology employees participate in hackathons and innovation programs where they can experiment with new tools, work across teams and solve business problems outside their normal assignments. These programs complement formal coursework by giving employees opportunities to apply new technical skills.
• Internal mobility provides another route for advancement: New York Life’s Internal Mobility Program offers career counseling, resume and interviewing support, workshops and individual coaching for employees considering new roles. As of August 2023, 401 participants had moved into new positions through the program, giving Technology employees a formal resource for pursuing opportunities elsewhere in the organization.
• External signals:
  • Technology employees frequently highlight opportunities to keep learning: Indeed’s Software Development reviews list the ability to learn new things among the aspects employees most commonly appreciate about New York Life. (Indeed)
  • Technology experience can also carry value beyond an individual role: One full-stack developer gave New York Life 5/5 on Glassdoor and highlighted the value of having experience at an established financial-services company on their resume. (Glassdoor)

Bottom line: Career growth in New York Life Technology can mean advancing as an engineer, developing into technical leadership or moving into specialties such as cloud, cybersecurity, data and AI. Dedicated learning resources, hands-on innovation opportunities and internal mobility give employees several ways to keep expanding both their technical skills and the scope of their responsibilities.

New York Life’s Technology employees have access to technical academies, external learning funds, digital coursework, mentorship and hands-on innovation programs. The company specifically provides technologists with a learning stipend for individually selected outside development, while programs such as the Cyber Academy and Learning Exchange support deeper technical expertise. Engineers can also build skills through hackathons, AI labs and internal technology showcases where teams experiment with tools and learn from colleagues and outside technology companies.

• Technologists receive dedicated funding for external learning: New York Life’s learning-stipend program allows Technology employees and their managers to choose external skills-development programs that match individual needs. That gives engineers flexibility to pursue specialized coursework, certifications or other training relevant to their particular technical path.
• The Cyber Academy provides structured development in a critical Technology specialty: New York Life specifically identifies its Cyber Academy as one of its programs for developing deep expertise. It complements on-the-job work for employees building skills in cybersecurity and other areas where technical knowledge needs to stay current.
• The Learning Exchange gives engineers an ongoing course library: New York Life’s digital Learning Exchange offers personalized, on-demand learning across hundreds of subjects. Corporate employees average 13 hours of training, and employees complete more than 250,000 digital and live courses annually, giving technologists resources they can use throughout their careers rather than only during onboarding.
• AI training is becoming part of Technology development: Ignite AI Learning Week in April 2026 included hands-on labs created with Microsoft and OpenAI where employees worked with tools including Copilot and ChatGPT Enterprise. The labs drew nearly 3,000 registrations, and more than nine in 10 employees who provided feedback rated the sessions valuable and relevant.
• Technology employees can learn by seeing what other teams are building: The TDAV-hosted 2025 Innovation Summit brought together more than 1,200 employees on its first day and featured employee-built solutions plus sessions from Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, dbt Labs and Tableau. For engineers, events like this provide exposure to technologies and use cases beyond their immediate projects.
• Hackathons give employees a place to experiment outside normal project work: New York Life runs companywide hackathons where employees collaborate across functions to solve real business challenges. NYL Hack 2024 included AI-focused tracks involving custom GPTs and other technology designed to improve processes, employee experiences and business outcomes.
• Early-career engineers learn through real projects and experienced teammates: The Technology, Data, AI & Ventures internship program includes seven specialized tracks spanning software engineering, AI engineering/MLOps, data engineering, platform engineering, security engineering, data science and analytics. Software engineering interns work on actual applications while building their networks through collaboration, team activities and a capstone project.
• Mentorship and leadership development support longer-term progression: Technology employees can also use New York Life’s companywide mentorship and leadership-development programs. These resources are designed to help employees learn from more experienced colleagues and prepare for responsibilities beyond their current technical role.
• External signals:
  • An early-career engineer described learning as a constant part of the experience: A New York-based DevOps engineer intern said there were “so many things to learn and do” and that employees could continually take on new projects. (Indeed)
  • A Technology intern highlighted hands-on development: A Technology/Business Analyst intern said the experience included sitting in on training and meetings, hands-on coding and learning more about the insurance business. (Glassdoor)

Bottom line: New York Life gives its Technology team several ways to keep developing, from technical academies and individually chosen external training to AI labs, hackathons and internal innovation events. Engineers can strengthen specific technical skills while also getting exposure to emerging technologies, other specialties and broader business problems.