Development Services Director

The City of Bellevue is seeking an experienced, collaborative, and forward-thinking leader to serve as its Director of Development Services
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The Director provides leadership, strategic direction, and general oversight for the Development Services Department, including land use entitlement, building permitting and inspection, code compliance, business services, policy, and code development. Working through and alongside division leaders, the Director establishes priorities, implements policies and processes, makes key administrative and program management decisions, and develops long-range strategies that support the City’s growth and development.

A key part of the role is providing strong organizational leadership, building a cohesive management team, coaching and developing leaders and staff, encouraging collaboration across divisions and departments, advancing continuous improvement and innovation, and ensuring high-quality, customer-focused services. The Director also serves as an enterprise leader and member of the City’s senior leadership team, contributing to broader citywide priorities and organizational decision-making.

Bellevue is a growing, diverse, and economically vibrant community known for its strong neighborhoods, thriving business environment, natural beauty, and commitment to thoughtful growth. The city is recognized for its focus on innovation, collaboration, excellent public service, and preparing for the needs of a changing community.

This position offers an opportunity to lead a complex and highly visible department while helping shape how Bellevue grows and delivers development services for residents, businesses, and the broader community.

• Provides strategic and policy direction to the Department
• Organizes and leads the department’s management team in responding to department and citywide issues.
• Manages the day-to-day administration of the department, including the budget, employee/ labor relations issues, and customer requests.
• Leads through the department’s management team by setting clear expectations, providing timely feedback, and evaluating performance to achieve departmental goals, employee growth, and accountability for results.
• Recruits and retains qualified staff at all departmental levels, consistent with applicable laws and regulations.
• Oversees the preparation and updating of short- and long-range strategic plans to ensure the department's contribution to the City's overall plans and strategies.
• Serves as an enterprise leader and active member of the City’s senior leadership team, balancing departmental priorities with broader City interests and contributing to citywide strategic and management decisions.
• Creates and sustains a healthy, high-performing organizational culture characterized by trust, accountability, respectful communication, employee engagement, creativity, and teamwork. Proactively addresses leadership, performance, workplace culture, and employee-relations concerns.
• Directs ongoing research into new technologies and trends and recommends implementation of programs, systems, and tools that help the department achieve its objectives more effectively and efficiently.
• Presents departmental issues and recommendations on major issues requiring policy direction to appropriate advisory bodies and to the city council.
• Builds alignment and shared ownership across departments and offices on common projects, priorities, and interests. Encourages constructive disagreement and, once decisions are made, supports and effectively implements established organizational direction.
• Directs the evaluation, update, and revisions to the comprehensive plan elements.
• Oversees the development and administration of Development Services fees and rates for permitting, plan…