Senior Director, Software Development

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Director, Software Development based in United States.

This role offers the opportunity to lead a large-scale engineering organization responsible for building and evolving technology solutions that support educators, administrators, and school communities.
The Senior Director will define engineering strategy, drive modernization initiatives, and ensure the delivery of secure, scalable, and reliable software products.
Working across multiple product lines, this leader will guide teams through complex technical challenges while balancing innovation, stability, and customer needs.
The position requires a strong combination of technical expertise, organizational leadership, and business alignment.
You will collaborate closely with Product, Design, QA, Cloud Engineering, and customer-facing teams to transform priorities into impactful engineering outcomes.
This is a high-visibility leadership opportunity for an experienced engineering executive passionate about building strong teams and advancing modern software practices.

The Senior Director, Software Development will provide strategic and operational leadership across engineering teams, ensuring successful product delivery, technical excellence, and continuous improvement across multiple software platforms.

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead engineering organizations across multiple product lines, ensuring strong delivery execution, team performance, operational continuity, and alignment with business objectives.
• Establish and execute an engineering vision that supports product strategy, customer needs, scalability, security, reliability, and long-term platform evolution.
• Oversee the complete software development lifecycle, including architecture, development, testing, release management, maintenance, and continuous improvement.
• Drive modernization efforts by improving engineering practices, technical standards, architecture, and development workflows.
• Partner with Product, Design, Security, QA, Cloud Engineering, Dev Ops, Technical Support, and other stakeholders to improve product outcomes and resolve complex challenges.
• Guide technical decisions across diverse product environments while identifying opportunities to strengthen shared platforms and connected experiences.
• Build and develop high-performing engineering teams through organizational design, hiring, coaching, succession planning, and career development.
• Establish a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning.
• Manage engineering priorities, resources, budgets, risks, and performance through data-driven decision-making and operational discipline.
• Promote adoption of modern engineering approaches, including AI-enabled development practices, automation, and improved delivery methodologies.
• Ensure clear communication of engineering priorities, organizational updates, delivery progress, and strategic decisions across technical and executive audiences.

The ideal candidate is an experienced engineering leader with a strong background in software development, technical strategy, and managing large, distributed teams. Required qualifications include:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline.
• 12+ years of software development leadership experience, including significant experience managing multiple engineering teams or product organizations.
• Proven success leading large-scale engineering functions and managing leaders responsible for teams of engineers.
• Experience delivering and supporting commercial software products within SaaS, web applications, or hybrid technology environments.
• Strong technical foundation across modern software engineering practices, with experience guiding teams working with technologies such as Java, .NET, SQL, JavaScript, service integrations, Git-based workflows, and development management tools.
• Experience leading modernization initiatives involving legacy technologies while transitioning teams toward scalable and maintainable architectures.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as Azure, CI/CD practices, automated testing, secure software development, and release management.
• Strong ability to balance strategic vision with hands-on operational execution in complex, multi-product environments.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience using metrics, business insights, and financial considerations to guide engineering decisions.
• Strong judgment, emotional intelligence, and demonstrated ability to build accountable, high-performing teams.
• Experience with AI-enabled development practices, coding assistants, or modern engineering workflows is preferred.
• Experience in education technology, K-12 software,…