Senior Director, Software Development

📋 Description

• Take ownership of delivery commitments for Connected Curriculum and related product teams, ensuring reliable execution, quality, and operational readiness.

• Collaborate with Product leadership to convert product roadmap priorities into engineering plans, capacity models, and sequencing strategies.

• Set clear expectations for planning, estimation, dependency management, and risk mitigation.

• Provide transparent and accurate delivery visibility to executive stakeholders, proactively identifying risks and tradeoffs.

• Ensure teams effectively balance feature delivery with continuous investment in reliability, scalability, and technical health.

• Serve as a senior technical leader, engaging extensively in architecture, system design, and cross-product technical decisions.

• Act as a core member of the Architecture Council, contributing to the definition and evolution of system-wide architectural direction.

• Lead the design and development of foundational platform services and shared components that support Connected Curriculum and other Modern Campus products.

• Ensure product architectures conform to emerging platform standards, shared services, and long-term scalability objectives.

• Guide significant technical decisions and tradeoffs, balancing delivery speed with sustainability, reuse, and operational excellence.

• Maintain responsibility for technical health across all managed systems, including performance, security, scalability, and reduction of technical debt.

• Spearhead modernization initiatives for legacy systems, aligning them with platform-oriented architecture.

• Promote the adoption of AI-assisted and agentic development practices, such as development harnesses, workflow automation, and engineering guardrails that enhance delivery speed, quality, and scalability.

• Guide the design and evolution of agentic SDLC patterns that enable teams to safely incorporate AI in design, implementation, testing, review, documentation, and operational workflows.

• Ensure AI-enabled development practices align with platform architecture, engineering standards, security requirements, and long-term maintainability.

• Lead and develop engineering leadership across multiple teams and product areas, establishing expectations for delivery ownership, technical leadership, and team well-being.

• Oversee hiring, onboarding, performance management, and succession planning within assigned engineering teams.

• Build and maintain high-performing organizations with robust technical depth and leadership capabilities.

• Cultivate a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence that reflects Modern Campus values.

• Scale engineering leadership and execution across various product lines as scope extends beyond Connected Curriculum, applying consistent standards for delivery discipline, technical stewardship, and organizational health across all product engineering groups. Collaborate with Product leadership to ensure that engineering capacity, architecture, and delivery models scale effectively as scope expands.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 12 years of professional software engineering experience in building and operating complex, customer-facing SaaS platforms.

• More than 6 years in engineering leadership roles with accountability for multiple teams or product areas.

• Proven track record of owning delivery outcomes across a portfolio of work.

• Strong technical fluency and the capability to engage in-depth in architecture, system design, and technical tradeoff discussions.

• Comprehensive knowledge of modern web application stacks, including: Frontend: React, TypeScript, modern frontend architectures; Backend: Java, Spring Boot, RESTful APIs; Data: Relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL); Cloud: AWS, containerized and CI/CD-based environments.

• Experience in designing or evolving platform-oriented architectures and shared services.

• Background in enhancing engineering effectiveness through AI-assisted development practices, workflow automation, or related SDLC innovations.

• Strong understanding of how to implement AI within the software development lifecycle while maintaining quality, security, maintainability, and team accountability.

• Demonstrated ability to closely partner with Product leadership and influence across organizational boundaries.

• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to clearly convey technical risks and tradeoffs to executive audiences.

🏝️ Benefits

• Remote-first workplace!

• Rewards and recognition programs.

• Learning and development opportunities.

• The opportunity to make a daily impact for universities aiming to grow and for students seeking to learn!