Senior Software Engineer Contract Jobs in Iowa (NOW HIRING)

Why Wellmark Technology? Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work. 

Wellmark is seeking two talented Software Engineers to join the Enterprise Data Services Team within Information Products. In this role, you will design and deliver high-performing, scalable software solutions that support Wellmark's evolving data and technology ecosystem.  

You will lead complex systems analysis and contribute to the development, testing, and optimization of applications that are efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. Working with a modern engineering environment, you will collaborate closely with engineers and cross-functional partners to build and enhance platform capabilities using microservices architecture, automated testing, and CI/CD practices.  

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will help drive the adoption of engineering best practices and emerging technologies while partnering across teams to deliver solutions aligned to business needs. You will also build strong relationships and contribute to technology enhancements and process improvements that enable data-driven decision-making across the organization.  

What You Will Help Build  
The Enterprise Data Services team is responsible for shaping how data is ingested, structured, and made accessible across the organization. You will contribute to the evolution of Wellmark's enterprise data lakehouse and the platforms that power scalable, data-driven solutions across technology teams.  

Key areas of focus include: 

• Enterprise data platforms: Services and pipelines that enable reliable data ingestion, transformation, and access across systems and domains. 
• Modern microservices architecture: Scalable, event-driven services and APIs that support real-time and batch data processing. 
• Data enablement capabilities: Platforms that make high-quality, trusted data accessible for analytics, applications, and decision-making.  
• Engineering excellence: Automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and best practices that improve quality, performance, and delivery speed 
• Cross-team collaboration: Solutions built through partnership with internal teams and external resources within a diverse delivery model.  

Preferred:  

• Hands-on engineering experience building backend services, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise-grade APIs or microservices, including RESTful and event-driven 
• Experience designing and delivering reusable platform capabilities, shared services, SDKs, templates, or internal developer enablement patterns that accelerate delivery across multiple teams. 
• Experience with AWS technologies such as CDK, Lambda, Step Functions, Bedrock, S3, SNS, SQS, EventBridge, DynamoDB, MongoDB, Aurora/Postgres, EC2/ECS, CloudWatch, Glue, AWS Batch, and API Gateway.  
• Expertise in AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) or comparable infrastructure-as-code frameworks, including authoring, testing, and maintaining reusable constructs and patterns.  
• Experience designing and implementing secure, compliant solutions in regulated environments, such as HIPAA, SOC2, or similar, including authentication, authorization, data protection, audit logging, and policy enforcement. 
• Experience implementing automated testing strategies across unit, integration, and end-to-end levels, and hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Enterprise Actions or similar tools.  
• Exposure to real-time data pipelines, streaming integrations, or event-driven data processing. 
• AWS certifications such as Cloud Practitioner or Solutions Architect are a plus. 
• Prior experience in health insurance, healthcare, financial services, or other regulated industries.  
• Experience participating in proof-of-concepts, hackathons, stakeholder demos, or innovation initiatives.  
• Strong innovation mindset, resourcefulness, and ability or interest in mentoring/coaching others. 
• Demonstrated ability to approach complex technical challenges with creativity and resourcefulness, leveraging strong problem-solving skills.  
• Experience working within an Agile team environment.  

Required: 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, MIS, or related field of study, and at least 2 years of software development experience (ex. Angular, NodeJS, TypeScript, C++, .NET, Java, SQL) OR 6 years of related and applicable experience. 
• Strong analytical problem-solving skills. Accuracy and high attention to detail. Previous experience troubleshooting and developing creative technical solutions. Ability to provide innovative solutions to complex issues. 
• Demonstrated experience in software development lifecycle methodologies. 
• Big picture thinker with the ability to translate the value of the WaaS strategy to company strategy when making design and development decisions. 
• Demonstrated, strong ability to gather information, perform necessary research needed for root cause analysis, problem definition and formulation, recommend solution implementation, verification, and ongoing optimization, using data to support recommendations and best practices. 
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships to reach outcomes that gain the support and acceptance of all parties. Ability to communicate key information in a timely manner to the appropriate stakeholder audience with the ability to adjust communication style that will best suit the audience. 
• Ability to communicate with and coach/mentor team members, while setting an example in maintaining a positive attitude, staying calm under pressure, being approachable, and respectful and taking responsibility for failures. 
• Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment with changing priorities. Excellent organizational skills. Strong time management skills with the ability to set and meet established timeframes with little direction, while assuring data and information integrity. 
• Eagerness to learn and stay current on industry trends and have a continuous learning mindset.  
• Ability to collaborate and work as a team to accomplish goals and/or solve problems. Ability to earn trust and respect from peers, leadership, and stakeholders. Ability to learn by actively listening and applying coaching feedback. 
• Ability to lead, support and work within a diverse development team model including global staffing, crowd sourcing, etc. 

a. Provide high-level analysis and implementation of innovative, efficient, and cost-effective business solutions for multiple platforms, while utilizing information technology, business, and industry trends. 

b. Guide other engineers in the design, development, code testing, debugging and resolution of issues that utilize emerging technology and meet and exceed Wellmark's evolving business needs. 

c. Provide advanced support in the gathering of information, necessary research needed for root cause analysis, problem definition and formulation, solution implementation, verification, and ongoing optimization. Ensure analysis of defects to find root cause and guide others in the identification of potential improvement opportunities.  

d. Mentor, guide and problem-solve with other technology areas in the development and implementation of solutions, including how to use new or enhanced software/applications. 

e. Use data and cost measures (AWS, infrastructure, labor, etc.) to influence timely decisions, build consensus, and take actions to successfully deliver project or production support objectives and support benefits realization. Identify known issues, impacts to project or production outcomes if not resolved, and escalate as necessary.  

f. Build relationships with Wellmark leaders and acts as consultant on business status, issues, process improvements and technology enhancements or capabilities. 

g. Participate in project proposals, estimates and proof-of-concept activities as needed. 

h. Maintain awareness of industry's best practices and standards and proactively participates in industry/knowledge reference groups relative to role. 

i. Other duties as assigned. 

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

Please inform us if you meet the definition of a "Covered DoD official".

At this time, Wellmark is not considering applicants for this position that require any type of immigration sponsorship (additional work authorization or permanent work authorization) now or in the future to work in the United States. This includes, but IS NOT LIMITED TO: F1-OPT, F1-CPT, H-1B, TN, L-1, J-1, etc. For additional information around work authorization needs please refer to the following resources:Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants 

Wellmark supports and expects the responsible use of AI for our workforce! We welcome the responsible use of these tools by job seekers as well and are interested in learning from you; you will have an opportunity in the application process to share which tools you used and how you applied them.