Director of Application Engineering

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** Who We Are
** Join a team that puts its People First! Since 1889, First American (NYSE: FAF) has held an unwavering belief in its people. They are passionate about what they do, and we are equally passionate about fostering an environment where all feel welcome, supported, and empowered to be innovative and reach their full potential. Our inclusive, people-first culture has earned our company numerous accolades, including being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list for ten consecutive years.

We have also earned awards as a best place to work for women, diversity and LGBTQ+ employees, and have been included on more than 50 regional best places to work lists. First American will always strive to be a great place to work, for all. For more information, please visit  
** What We Do
** Remote Work Welcome       The Director of Application Engineering provides strategic and operational leadership over all application engineering and modernization functions within Sentinels. This leader oversees multiple pods responsible for sustaining proprietary and legacy applications, ensuring secure CI/CD pipelines, driving modernization readiness, and embedding developers within sustainment teams to reduce risk and improve velocity.
This role will collaborate closely with peers across Platform & Cloud Infrastructure, Operations & Support, and Service Delivery & Governance and with our internal partners in Foundational Services, Cloud and Server Engineering to deliver a unified, SLA-driven managed service experience.
You’ll be part of a strategic transformation that’s redefining how First American sustains, secures, and optimizes its digital platforms. This is a chance to lead an elite team in building a centralized sustainment model that blends engineering excellence, operational discipline, and financial performance — while shaping the next generation of secure, automated hosting.##
** What You'll Do
**** Strategic Leadership
*** Define and execute the application sustainment and modernization strategy for 200-250 enterprise and proprietary apps in AWS.
* Partner with Platform and Operations Directors to align build vs. run ownership models and drive automation-based efficiency gains.
* Develop and manage quarterly objectives (OKRs) for application engineering aligned to Sentinels’ cost, compliance, and availability targets.
* Lead engineering participation in app intake, migration readiness, and sustainment transitions.
* Represent application development at enterprise governance and audit reviews.
** Application & Engineering Management
*** Lead engineering managers and developers embedded within sustainment and modernization pods.
* Oversee CI/CD pipelines, version control, and secure deployment frameworks (Git Hub Actions, Terraform, Liquibase, etc.).
* Drive codebase quality and standardization across legacy and modern app stacks (Angular

JS, React

JS, Python, .NET, C#, COTS customizations, etc.).
* Champion reusable modules, IaC patterns, and modernization accelerators (containerization, API gateways, etc.).
* Maintain alignment to compliance control library (e.g., code signing, vulnerability scanning, TLS 1.2+).
** Cross-Functional Collaboration
*** Partner with the Platform Director on Terraform/IaC integration, AWS architecture, and patch readiness.
* Work with the Ops Director on incident triage, observability (Kibana/Status Cast/XMatters), and defect management.
* Collaborate with the Governance Director to ensure code and configuration audit readiness.
* Contribute to unified dashboards for executive metrics and SLA compliance reporting.
** Team Development & Leadership
*** Manage 3–4 Engineering Managers and 5–6 onshore application sustainment pods and partner closely with offshore leadership/teams.
* Establish technical mentorship programs and career paths for engineers and pod leads.
* Drive culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and automation-first mindset.
* Support upskilling to drive removal of application SMEs across the portfolio
** Operational Excellence
*** Ensure incident and change management compliance with divisional tools and procedures
* Develop the operational discipline…