Director, Research and Development

Role overview Lead research and development strategy for a multi-product software portfolio, guiding roughly 40 development professionals across eight product lines. The role combines engineering leadership, legacy-platform modernization, delivery governance, and practical adoption of AI across the software lifecycle while maintaining customer stability.

Responsibilities - Set product and technology direction, maintain multi-year roadmaps, and align priorities with product, client, professional services, sales, and business leaders. - Coach engineering leaders and teams; plan capacity, allocate resources, and build succession coverage and durable technical knowledge. - Modernize software spanning IBM i, RPG, COBOL, and newer platforms while protecting continuity for customers. - Introduce engineering standards, delivery measures, and governance, including review, validation, and security controls for AI-generated code. - Personally use AI development tools and lead teams from assisted use toward supervised agent execution, supported by training, documentation, tests, and delivery pipelines. - Track outcomes such as delivery predictability, defects, customer satisfaction, development cost, and AI maturity; manage R&D forecasts and executive reporting.

Requirements - At least 10 years of progressive software development leadership and 5 years leading managers, technical leaders, or development teams in a multi-product organization. - Experience directing modernization across legacy and current technology platforms, and managing distributed, cross-functional teams. - Strong understanding of software development lifecycles, Agile methods, and the governance needed for safe AI-enabled delivery. - Executive-level communication, organization, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.

Nice to have - Experience with IBM i, AS/400, RPG, COBOL, public-sector or local-government software, or related enterprise systems. - Familiarity with AI coding assistants, LLMs, agentic tools, engineering KPIs, Jira, CI/CD, cloud, APIs, and automation. - Advanced technical experience or an MBA.

Benefits and work setup - The listed annual salary range is $125,000–$135,000 USD.