ABOUT DESCARTES UNDERWRITING

Descartes was born out of the conviction that the ever-increasing complexity of risks faced by corporations, governments and vulnerable communities calls for a renewed approach in insurance. Our team brings together industry veterans from the most renowned institutions (AXA, SCOR, Swiss Re, Marsh, Aon, ...) and scientists on top of their field to bring underwriting excellence. After 5 years of existence, Descartes has secured a leading position in parametric insurance for weather and climate-related risks utilizing machine learning, real-time monitoring from satellite imagery & IoT. After a successful Series B raise of $120M USD, we launched Descartes Insurance, a 'full stack' insurer licensed to underwrite risk by the French regulator ACPR. With a growing corporate client base (350+ and counting), our diverse team is headquartered in Paris and operates out of our 13 global offices in North America, Europe, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Descartes is trusted by a panel of A-rated (re)insurers to carry out its activities.

ABOUT YOUR ROLE

Due to our consistent growth, we are seeking to expand our Data, Software and DevOps team. We are searching for a Lead DevOps Engineer to manage a team of 2. 

As team lead, you will oversee:

• The development environment used to develop our code base;
• The integration of third party tools towards full automation;
• The processes to make each individual DevOps/Sysadmin excel at their work.

🔔 KEY MISSIONS 🔔

• Work closely with underwriting and R&D managers to define key targets and roadmap;
• Provide a strong technical direction and support to the engineering team;
• Ensure best practice and compliance to internal standards and practices;
• Frequently present the progress and goalsto both engineering and wider teams;
• Set up a cyber roadmap with a reachable Business Continuation Plan and Incidence response plan;
• Contribute to the technical roadmap through architecture meetings, design documents;
• Lead & coach your engineering team to consistently deliver according to their roadmap;
• Share your expertise to help your team:
  • Setup, automate, maintain and update:
    • Secured connection to third party tools;
    • CI/CD pipelines;
    • Data storage process;
    • Package versioning and releasing pipeline;
    • Docker environment;
    • Modularization of code base;
    • VM and compute instances;
    • Connections to external and internal APIs;
    • Notification process with chat tools;
    • Website hosting.
  • Assess and evaluate the cost and the security of software architecture and implementation;
  • Participate in:
    • Tech stack selection;
    • Discussions with tech partners;
    • Training of tech and underwriting teams;
    • Support and debug of internal users;
    • Management of IAM policies, groups and users.
      

TECH STACK  🖥️

• Cloud provider: GCP
• Code versioning tool: Git + Gitlab
• OS: Linux
• Container: Docker
• Code base: Python
• Notification tool: Slack

ABOUT YOU

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS  💻🖥️‍💻

[Management skills]

• 5+ years’ experience in DevOps position(s);
• 1 year or more of technical management experience;
• Ability to handle human interactions between tech and business;
• Experience mentoring a team of engineers by unblocking complex situations and sharing best practices (code reviews, pair programming..);
• Scoping and defining tech priorities according to roadmap and maintenance;
• Excellent communication skills, in both formal and informal settings, and in English and French.
  

[Hard skills]

• Knowledge of the tech stack or equivalent tools;
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes;
• Experience automating a CI/CD pipeline;
• Good knowledge in English and fluency in French.
  

[Nice-to-have]

• Experience in HPC;
• Experience releasing python package;
• Experience working data science project or scientific code;
• Contribution to an open source project. 

MINDSET 💥

• Strong interest with climate issue (it’s not a hoax, many people suffer from it)
• Being comfortable to work alongside corporate insurers (some still wear suits 👔)
• You enjoy CI/CD automation (or at least appreciate the elegance of a well-crafted pipeline)
• Willingness to help junior developers (remember how you were when you started 💬)
• Strong team spirit and ability to work (you’ll have to review code and have your code reviewed)
• Rigorous, creative and meticulous mind (we handle large insurance, we take our time)
• Strong desire to learn (there’s no limitation to the tech used, we’re happy to test and learn new tools)
• Eagerness to work in a multi-cultural environment (policies and teams are from all around the world 🗺️)

WHY JOIN DESCARTES UNDERWRITING?

• Opportunity to work and learn with teams from the most prestigious schools and research labs in the world, allowing you to progress towards technical excellence;
• Commitment from Descartes to its staff of continued learning and development (think annual seminars, training etc.) ;
• Work in a collaborative & professional environment ;
• Be part of an international team, passionate about diversity ;
• Join a company with a true purpose – help us help our clients be more resilient towards climate risks;
• A competitive salary, bonus and benefits;
  
• You can benefit from a punctual home office days.

At Descartes Underwriting, we cherish value of diversity whatever it may be. We are committed to fighting against all forms of discrimination and for equal opportunities. We foster an inclusive work environment that respects all differences.

With equal skills, all our positions are open to people with disabilities.
 

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

• Step 1: Call and HR Interview with our Talent Recruiter
• Step 2: Technical project submitted via GitHub
• Step 3: Technical interview
• Step 4: Manager interview
• Step 5: Final round interview with the team
  (Candidates can opt to have the manager interview before the technical project and interview)