Director, Research and Development

Define and execute the technology and development strategy for the Local Gov business unit. Provide leadership and oversight for all software development activities across eight product lines and approximately 40+ development professionals. Advance Local Gov's development teams along the Harris AI-SDLC maturity model - from AI-assisted work, to AI-directed work, to agentic delivery in which AI agents own bounded work end to end while engineers set goals, define guardrails, and review outcomes.

Lead modernization efforts across IBM i, RPG, and modern technology platforms while preserving customer stability and business continuity. Establish engineering standards, development methodologies, and governance processes to improve quality, predictability, and delivery performance. Partner with Product Management, Client Services, Professional Services, Sales, and Business Unit leadership to align development priorities with customer and business needs. Develop and maintain multi-year product and technology roadmaps across the Local Gov portfolio.

Build, develop, and mentor engineering leaders and technical teams while fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement. Oversee development capacity planning, resource allocation, and prioritization across competing initiatives and product lines. Use AI development tools personally and daily, and champion their use across the organization - including Git Hub Copilot, Project Bob, large language models, and agentic coding tools - holding a current, practical command of what they can and cannot do rather than relying on secondhand reporting.

Establish and monitor KPIs that measure outcomes rather than activity - cycle time, development throughput, escaped defect and escalation rates, delivery predictability, customer satisfaction, and development cost as a percentage of revenue - and report AI delivery maturity and the business outcomes it produces on a recurring executive cadence. Own the Local Gov AI delivery-maturity roadmap across all eight product lines, applied stage by stage across the software lifecycle rather than as a single business-unit rating, and deliver against the maturity targets agreed with executive leadership.

Stand up the governance that makes delegated agent work safe, including review gates, validation, and security review of AI-generated code, with quality standards applied equally to human‑written and AI-generated code. Make the Local Gov codebase and delivery pipeline accessible to AI agents through documentation, test coverage, CI/CD, and structured context. Apply AI directly to the IBM i and RPG estate - legacy code comprehension, documentation generation, and modernization analysis - as a primary mechanism for preserving knowledge held by an aging and retiring RPG skillset.

Build the tooling and training program that moves engineers from AI‑assisted work, to AI‑directed work, to supervised agent execution, and give them the access and time to get there. Lead strategic modernization and transformation initiatives including cloud adoption, customer‑facing AI solutions, and automation efforts. Ensure appropriate architecture, security, compliance, and technical governance practices are maintained across all products. Serve as the executive escalation point for critical development issues and strategic customer initiatives.

Develop succession planning and knowledge preservation strategies for aging legacy technology skillsets. Manage OpEx Financial Forecast for R&D department to include monthly forecast updates, reporting on Monthly Business Unit Review Calls, & attendance/participation Annual Businesss Strategy Meeting. Attendance to key customer events in markets where…