Director, Applications Development

Reporting to the VP, Application Development in a multi-faceted, multi-location academic setting, the Director, Applications Development provides hands on technical and people leadership across web application engineering, AI enabled solutions, and application portfolio management for American Career College, West Coast University, and Administration. This role translates institutional strategy into a practical technology roadmap and delivers measurable outcomes that enhance student, faculty, and staff experiences.

The Director partners closely with academic leaders, Information Technology pillar owners, and operations to prioritize investments, modernize platforms, and accelerate time to value—while maintaining strong security, privacy (FERPA), accessibility, and reliability standards. Conducts periodic reviews of the application portfolio and works with the Information Technology leadership team as well as the academic leaders to build business cases for enhancing technology necessary to anticipate institutional needs, enhance stability and/or improve price/performance.

Works closely with information technology clients, information technology pillar owners, academic solutions architects, and information technology operations to ensure correct solutions are built and implemented.

• Strategy and Portfolio
  • Own the Applications Roadmap across American Career College, West Coast University, and Administration; align initiatives, funding, and sequencing with institutional goals. Build business cases and total-cost-of-ownership analyses; manage investment trade offs and present executive-ready recommendations.
• Hands On Technical Leadership
  • Provide architecture direction; review designs and code; lead proofs of concept; unblock complex issues. Set engineering standards: coding practices, testing, performance, security, documentation, and accessibility.
• AI and Data Solutions
  • Deliver AI-enabled experiences using Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, vector stores, and Azure Machine Learning as appropriate. Establish AI application development patterns, prompt management, model evaluation, telemetry, and guardrails; lead Responsible AI governance with Security, Legal, and Compliance.
• Web and Application Development
  • Lead development of React/Type Script front ends and .NET 8/ASP.NET Core APIs and microservices. Leverage Azure services:
    App Service, Functions, API Management, Service Bus/Event Grid, Key Vault, Application Insights, Azure SQL/Cosmos DB, Storage, and optionally AKS/containers where justified. Ensure accessibility (WCAG 2.2), performance, resiliency, and scalability.
• Integration and Enterprise Platforms
  • Drive API-first integration with SIS/ERP/CRM/HCM and LMS ecosystems (e.g., Campus Nexus/Campus Vue, Salesforce, Oracle HCM, etc). Implement data and event integration patterns; partner with Data/Analytics on Synapse/Fabric (or equivalent) where applicable.
• Dev Sec Ops , Reliability & Compliance
  • Implement CI/CD (Git Hub Actions or Azure Dev Ops), Infrastructure as Code (Bicep/Terraform), automated quality gates, and environment management. Embed security and privacy by design: threat modeling, secure SDLC, SAST/DAST/Secrets scanning, RBAC/least privilege with Entra , data classification/retention, and FERPA/PCI considerations. Establish SLOs/SLIs, observability (Application Insights/Open Telemetry), incident response, and problem management.
• People, Partners & Communication
  • Hire, develop, and coach managers and engineers; foster an inclusive, high accountability culture. Lead vendor/partner strategy: evaluate solutions, negotiate SOWs, define SLAs, govern delivery, and track ROI. Communicate effectively across audiences—executive updates, stakeholder demos, written narratives, and technical deep dives.

• Bachelor degree in computer science, information systems, electronics engineering, voice/data communications, public/business administration, or a related field required;
  Master's degree preferred.

• 10+ years of progressive leadership in application development and delivery, including leading managers and multidisciplinary teams.
• 5+…