Sr. Manager, Research & Innovation - WEX Technology

Location: Remote (US) | Portland, ME | Dallas, TX | Chicago, IL
Reports To: VP of Engineering, Architecture, Research & Innovation
Department: WEX Technology

WEX is a global commerce platform that simplifies the business of running a business. We operate at the intersection of financial technology and benefits administration, serving millions of consumers and thousands of employers through our Health & Benefits, Corporate Payments, and Mobility solutions. Our Health & Benefits business processes billions of dollars in healthcare payments annually and administers benefits for a significant portion of the U.S. workforce.

We are seeking a Sr. Manager, Research & Innovation to lead our R&I function within the Health & Benefits organization. This role is responsible for identifying, evaluating, and prototyping emerging technologies that will shape our next-generation platform capabilities-from AI-native engineering and agentic workflows to novel approaches in identity, data, and developer experience.

You will own our innovation pipeline end-to-end: scanning the technology landscape, building proof-of-concept implementations, validating business applicability, and partnering with Architecture and Product teams to graduate promising innovations into production roadmaps. This is a hands-on leadership role that balances strategic technology foresight with the ability to build working prototypes that demonstrate the art of the possible.

This role is ideal for a technologist who is energized by what's next-someone who reads research papers for fun, builds side projects to test new frameworks, and can translate bleeding-edge concepts into practical solutions for enterprise-scale problems.

• Own and operate the innovation funnel with Product from Ideation Validation PoC Incubation Graduation, managing initiatives across both revenue-generating and internal efficiency tracks
• Develop structured intake processes that capture innovation ideas from across the organization and prioritize based on strategic fit and feasibility
• Define success criteria for each pipeline stage and make go/no-go recommendations to leadership
• Maintain visibility into pipeline status and communicate progress to stakeholders through regular readouts

• Continuously scan the technology landscape for emerging trends, tools, and techniques relevant to fintech, healthcare, benefits administration, and enterprise platforms
• Monitor competitor and industry developments including product launches, patent filings, conference presentations, and open-source releases
• Evaluate new technologies against our architectural principles, compliance requirements, and operational constraints
• Build and maintain a technology radar that informs architectural and product decisions
• Produce written assessments and recommendations that help leadership make informed technology adoption decisions

• Lead hands-on development of proof-of-concept implementations that demonstrate viability and value of emerging technologies
• Design PoCs that answer specific technical and business questions with minimal investment
• Build working prototypes across a range of technology areas including AI/ML, agentic systems, developer tooling, integration patterns, and user experience innovations
• Document PoC outcomes with clear findings, limitations, and recommendations for next steps
• Ensure successful PoCs can be evolved into production-ready patterns

• AI-Native Engineering: Explore applications of large language models, agentic workflows, and AI-assisted development practices to accelerate engineering productivity and product capabilities
• Emerging Identity & Security: Evaluate decentralized identity, passkeys, zero-trust architectures, and privacy-enhancing technologies
• Data & Analytics Innovation: Investigate advanced analytics, real-time processing, and intelligent automation opportunities
• Developer Experience: Identify tools, frameworks, and practices that improve developer productivity and platform usability

• Establish relationships with technology vendors to gain early access to roadmaps, betas, and partnership opportunities
• Engage with academic institutions, research labs, and industry consortia to stay connected to foundational research
• Represent WEX at conferences, meetups, and technology forums; contribute thought leadership through writing and speaking
• Facilitate vendor evaluations and pilot programs in partnership with Procurement and Legal

• Lead and mentor a small team of research engineers, fostering a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and rigorous evaluation
• Create an environment where creative exploration is balanced with disciplined execution
• Coach team members on technical skills, research methodology, and stakeholder communication
• Collaborate closely with Architecture, Engineering, Product, and Security teams to ensure R&I efforts align with organizational priorities

• 8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with 3+ years leading innovation, R&D, or advanced engineering initiatives
• Hands-on technical proficiency with the ability to personally build proof-of-concept implementations across multiple technology domains
• Track record of technology evaluation that led to successful adoption decisions-and equally important, decisions to pass on technologies that weren't ready
• Experience translating research into practice-taking concepts from whitepapers, conferences, or vendor pitches and determining real-world applicability
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both engineering and business audiences

• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn and prototype with unfamiliar technologies, languages, and frameworks
• Solid foundation in distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS and/or Azure), and modern application architectures
• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts including large language models, prompt engineering, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation
• Understanding of API design, event-driven architectures, and integration patterns
• Awareness of security and compliance considerations in regulated industries (HIPAA, PCI-DSS experience is a plus)

• Genuinely curious about emerging technology-you read Hacker News, follow research labs, and experiment with new tools on your own time
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to structure exploration when the destination isn't clear
• Pragmatic optimist who can separate hype from substance and identify what's actually production-ready
• Skilled at building consensus and generating excitement for new ideas across skeptical audiences
• Resilient in the face of failed experiments-you treat negative results as valuable data

• Background in healthcare technology, benefits administration, or payments/fintech
• Experience with agentic AI systems, workflow orchestration, or autonomous agent architectures
• Familiarity with developer experience tooling, platform engineering, or internal developer platforms
• Contributions to open-source projects or published technical writing
• Experience managing vendor relationships and technology partnerships

• Greenfield innovation mandate: Dedicated investment in exploring what's next, not just maintaining what exists
• Real-world impact: Your innovations will eventually serve millions of people managing their healthcare benefits
• Technical depth: Work alongside experienced architects and engineers solving complex, high-stakes problems
• Executive visibility: Direct line to leadership with opportunities to present findings and recommendations
• Learning culture: An organization that values continuous learning and experimentation