Welcome to the News archives for the NC TECH | Metlife Center for Technology Workforce Innovation. Read tech talent news features, MetLife employee profiles, quarterly talent newsletters, and selected talent articles written by thought leaders at MetLife.
MetLife Employee Spotlights
Joyce Chiu, Eileen Barbara and Eric Traynor don’t sit on the same team, but they — and their coworkers companywide — share a common goal: to safeguard tens of millions of people’s information across the globe.
Chiu, a member of the Corporate Functions Technology team, is responsible for enhancing MetLife’s digital employee experience, and security is at the heart of every decision she makes. Barbara sits on MetLife’s IT security team and is charged with governing global security risk, controls and compliance. And Traynor, as part of MetLife’s Global Technology organization, is responsible for enabling security and mitigating risk in U.S. technology platforms.
Twenty years ago, Sushma Punuru joined MetLife as an early career software engineer and began work building applications being used across the company.
In time, her ambitions grew into a desire to build the “next best solution,” with a focus on getting deeper into building modern digital solutions. But soon a mindset shift changed the course of her professional focus and her trajectory within MetLife.
When U.S. Air Force Veteran and Lead IT Data Protection Consultant Marian Graves joined MetLife, she was thrilled to have found an organization that aligned closely with her personal values.
“From my experience serving in the United States Air Force, I learned the power of commitment, integrity, professionalism, persistence, respect and resilience. All of these attributes mirror my personal values and will always be a part of whatever I do and wherever I go in this life,” she said.
Last year, our goal was to have 600 employees compete to “Hack the Future of Customer Care” and we wound up with 2,700 signups—from all lines of business and functions across the company and around the world. The teams developed 300+ unique, tech-forward solutions that have the power to drive business initiatives and increase efficiency.
But only one team could win. The team that took the top spot proposed a real-time disability claim tracker to show customers exactly where their claim is in the process. We sat down with two of the seven members on the winning team to learn more about their surprising career pivot from the business side to IT and what they found most inspiring about the Hackathon.
MetLife’s Global Technology Hub sits in the Research Triangle near Cary, North Carolina. It boasts perks like a cafeteria, an onsite gym, basketball court and a walking trail, but it’s the company’s inclusivity, team collaboration, and project innovation that has kept employees like Rivera and Dan Xiao, principal software engineer, each at MetLife for over a decade. “I would say the greatest benefit of working on the development team here is being on a diverse team with members from very different geographic locations, and ethnic and technical backgrounds,” said Xiao. “You really can learn a lot from those different perspectives.”
Newsletters
Thought Leadership
Bill Pappas, Head of Global Technology & Operations, discusses the role technology plays at MetLife, what technology leaders need to consider when delivering new technologies, and developing cultures of innovation.
Bill Pappas, Head of Global Technology & Operations, delves into the importance of building a sustainable culture to cultivate an innovative and steady workforce.
In a competitive job market, preparing STEM students for success is more crucial than ever. MetLife's Bill Pappas emphasizes the importance of education in shaping the next generation of tech leaders.
Questions
For more information about Talent News, reach out to Andrea Fleming.
