Jobs › Northwestern Mutual

This position has closed. Northwestern Mutual first posted this listing on Aug 28, 2017. It is still on their careers page, but a job that old is almost certainly not being filled, so we took it down on Oct 4, 2026. The interview prep below is still useful, and there are similar open roles at the bottom of this page.

Sr Full Stack Engineer

Northwestern Mutual · Milwaukee, WI · Full time · Dig Workplace & Corp Solutions

Posted Aug 28, 2017 · We last checked this listing on Oct 4, 2026

Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Tell me about a technical decision you made that turned out to be wrong.

What they are checking: Whether they can name a mistake, which senior engineers who cannot are dangerous.

Tell me about a time you disagreed with your team about an approach.

What they are checking: Whether they can argue a position and then commit to the other one.

How do you review someone else's code so they learn something rather than feel judged?

What they are checking: Whether they lift the team, which is what distinguishes a senior engineer from a productive one.

Tell me about working on a system you inherited and did not like.

What they are checking: Whether they improve legacy code or campaign to rewrite it.

What would you do

How do you decide between fixing something properly and shipping the version that works now?

What they are checking: Judgment about debt, which is most of what senior means.

This is a financial services company with a lot of regulation. How does that change how you build?

What they are checking: Whether they have thought about the domain rather than treating it as a generic engineering job.

Something is broken in production and nobody knows why. Walk me through your first hour.

What they are checking: Debugging method under pressure, which is where experience shows.

How do you explain a technical tradeoff to someone who is not technical?

What they are checking: Whether they can bring the business along, which a senior role in an old company requires constantly.

About the work

Walk me through a system you built end to end. What would you change if you started again?

What they are checking: Whether they have owned something whole, and whether they learned from it.

How do you decide what to test and what not to?

What they are checking: A realistic view of testing rather than a doctrine in either direction.

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at Northwestern Mutual from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

The full job description

As published by Northwestern Mutual.

At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust. That our lives and our work matter. These beliefs launched our company nearly 160 years ago. Today, they're just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual. We're strong and growing. In a company with such a long and storied history, this may be the most exciting and important time to be a part of Northwestern Mutual. We're strong, innovative and growing. We invest in our people. We provide opportunities for employees to grow themselves, their career and in turn, our business. We care. We make a positive difference in our communities. Nationally, thousands have benefitted from our support of research and programs to fight childhood cancer. Each year, our Foundation, employees and financial representatives donate time, talent and financial support to causes they're passionate about. We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law. Description: We are looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer to join our Digital Workplace team within the Investments and Financial Management space. The role requires a dynamic agile engineering mindset, patience and persistence to solve complex problems, ability to get things done quickly but thoughtfully, and strong engineering skills. What you’ll get to do: • Apply engineering best practices to analyze, design and develop deploy and support software solutions, and/or infrastructure implementations/upgrades. • Develop software and systems on test driven development and continuous integration practices; establish monitoring and automation processes. • In a DevOps environment, you move between diverse tasks with cooperation and persistence, helping to bring out the best in those around you. • Build day-to-day like a start-up - incrementally and iteratively - but with the security and resources of an enterprise budget • Collaborate in a deeply cross functional way with engineers and designers - roll up your sleeves and put your heads together to brainstorm requirements for features and solution through thorny bugs • Release to production early and often - you won’t be working on a product for a year before it sees the light of day; we believe in MVPs. • Get to know your end users - observe users firsthand working with the software, and field ideas and requests from them directly • Test and learn - You are empowered to work with our Analytics and UX Research experts to identify problems, formulate hypotheses, and experiment with solutions • Work with a talented, mission-driven, fun-loving team who values your input and your individuality Who we’re looking for: • Full Stack senior engineer • 5+ years of professional experience in object oriented programming JavaScript, Java or C# • Experience with coaching and mentoring junior engineers • Experience in one or more modern JavaScript frameworks React, Angular 2, ES6 • Experience with REST backend, ex. Node (Express), Java SpringBoot, or .NET Core • Experience with front-end CSS frameworks (Foundation, Bootstrap, etc.) and CSS pre­compilers (Sass, Less) • Experience with relational and non-structured databases • Experience with cloud services and applicable uses, AWS or Azure • Experience with Git Source Control Our Benefits: • Tuition reimbursement, commuter plans, and paid time off • Highly competitive compensation that include base salary plus bonus • Medical/Dental/Vision plans, matching 401(k), pension program • Hackathons/Commitment to Innovation • Life Balance • Extensive Training Opportunities • Free lunch Req ID: 13642 Position Type: Regular Full Time Education Experience: Bachelor's Desired Employment Experience: 6-8 years Licenses/Certifications: FLSA Status: Exempt Posting Date: 05/05/2017

More senior full stack engineer roles