Head of Digital Workplace Collaboration Platforms, Engineering & Architecture

Head of Digital Workplace Collaboration Platforms, Engineering & Architecture

Locations: Bethlehem, PA | Holmdel, NJ | Hudson Yards, NY 


Department: Digital Workplace 


Reports To: Head of Digital Workplace

Position Summary

Guardian is seeking a highly experienced and hands on technology leader to lead our Collaboration Engineering & Architecture function within Digital Workplace.

This role is responsible for the strategy, architecture, engineering, governance, security, and operational excellence of Guardian's collaboration ecosystem, including Microsoft 365, Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, messaging services, collaboration integrations, conferencing technologies, and emerging workplace productivity capabilities.

The ideal candidate is not simply a people manager. We are looking for a proven leader who currently leads a similar collaboration engineering, messaging, workplace technology, or Microsoft 365 organization and remains deeply technical. This individual must be capable of engaging in executive strategy discussions one moment and technical architecture reviews, escalations, and design decisions the next.

This role will lead a team of collaboration engineers and architects while partnering closely with Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, Cloud Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Application Development, Service Management, Identity & Access Management, and business stakeholders across the enterprise.

Key Responsibilities

Collaboration Platform Strategy & Architecture

• Develop the vision, strategy, architecture, and roadmap for enterprise collaboration technologies.
• Define long-term architecture for Microsoft 365 collaboration services.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and determine adoption strategies.
• Establish platform standards, design patterns, and governance models.
• Drive platform modernization initiatives and technical debt reduction.
• Develop business cases and investment recommendations for collaboration technologies.

Messaging & Collaboration Engineering

Provide leadership and technical oversight for:

• Exchange Online
• Enterprise Messaging Services
• Mail Flow Architecture
• SMTP Relay Services
• Email Security Integrations
• Microsoft Teams
• Teams Phone
• Teams Meetings
• Teams Governance
• SharePoint Online
• OneDrive for Business
• Microsoft 365 Groups
• Viva and Collaboration Extensions
• Collaboration-related AI and Productivity Services
• Proofpoint
• Zoom

Serve as senior technical escalation point for complex collaboration issues.

Microsoft 365 Platform Ownership

Lead engineering and operations for:

• Microsoft 365 tenant architecture
• Collaboration service lifecycle management
• Service health and reliability
• Tenant governance
• Platform configuration management
• Licensing strategy and optimization
• Adoption of new Microsoft capabilities

Partner with Microsoft and strategic vendors to influence roadmaps and resolve critical issues.

Security, Risk & Compliance

Partner with Cybersecurity and Risk teams to:

• Implement collaboration security controls
• Support data protection initiatives
• Drive compliance with regulatory requirements
• Implement retention, governance, and information protection controls
• Manage audit findings and remediation activities
• Improve security posture across collaboration platforms

Collaboration Integrations & Business Solutions

Lead engineering support for:

• Teams integrations
• SharePoint integrations
• OneDrive integrations
• Microsoft Graph solutions
• SaaS platform integrations
• Workflow and automation solutions

Provide architecture review and governance for collaboration-related projects across the enterprise.

Service Reliability & Operational Excellence

Accountable for:

• Platform availability
• Service resilience
• Disaster recovery readiness
• Business continuity planning
• Incident response
• Problem management
• Capacity planning
• Performance optimization

Establish operational metrics, service objectives, and engineering standards.

Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead and develop a high-performing engineering organization.
• Build strong technical leadership capabilities within the team.
• Drive accountability and execution.
• Mentor engineers and architects.
• Develop succession plans and talent pipelines.
• Foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and customer focus.

Vendor & Financial Management

• Manage strategic relationships with strategic partners.
• Oversee platform licensing and vendor spend.
• Develop annual investment plans and business cases.
• Drive cost optimization while maintaining service quality.

Required Qualifications

Leadership Experience

• 10+ years of IT experience.
• 5+ years leading Collaboration, Messaging, Microsoft 365, Workplace Technology, or Infrastructure Engineering teams.
• Currently serving in a Director, Head, Senior Manager, Principal Architect, or equivalent leadership role.

Deep Technical Expertise

Expert level experience with:

• Microsoft 365
• Exchange Online
• Exchange Hybrid
• Microsoft Teams
• SharePoint Online
• OneDrive
• Entra ID (Azure AD)
• Microsoft Graph
• Teams Voice
• Teams Governance
• Email Security
• Mail Flow
• SMTP
• Identity Integration

Strong knowledge of:

• PowerShell Automation
• Microsoft Purview
• DLP
• Retention Policies
• Compliance
• Information Governance
• Zero Trust Architecture

Architecture & Engineering

Demonstrated experience:

• Designing enterprise-scale collaboration environments
• Leading platform migrations and transformations
• Building governance frameworks
• Supporting large-scale Microsoft 365 deployments
• Designing resilient and highly available collaboration services

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator certification
• Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect
• Microsoft Teams Administrator certification
• ITIL certification
• Experience in highly regulated industries
• Experience leading enterprise collaboration transformations
• Experience with AI enabled workplace technologies and Microsoft Copilot

Leadership Profile We Are Seeking

This is not a traditional operational manager role.

The successful candidate will be:

• A recognized collaboration technology leader.
• Deeply technical and architecture oriented.
• Comfortable challenging vendors and influencing senior leaders.
• Equally effective discussing strategy with executives and reviewing technical designs with engineers.
• Passionate about Microsoft 365, messaging, collaboration, and workplace productivity.
• Proven in leading through organizational and technology change.

Why This Role Matters

This leader will own the engineering and architecture foundation that enables how Guardian employees collaborate, communicate, share knowledge, and remain productive. They will be responsible for ensuring our collaboration platforms remain secure, reliable, scalable, modern, and positioned to support future innovations in AI, intelligent productivity, and digital workplace transformation.

Salary Range:

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact MyHR@glic.com. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools") to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to MyHR@glic.com, making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via MyHR@glic.com.

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here. 

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.