Director, Engineering

Summary

The Director, Engineering is responsible for leading the design, development, delivery, modernization, and ongoing support of enterprise technology solutions that enable the firm’s legal and business operations. This role provides strategic and operational leadership for software engineering, application development, and systems integration, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, maintainable and aligned with enterprise and value stream priorities. The Director partners closely with value stream leadership, IT services leaders, and business stakeholders to deliver high‑quality technology capabilities that improve attorney and business professional productivity, enhance client experience, and support revenue growth and operational efficiency.

This role is accountable for engineering execution discipline, technical quality, delivery reliability, and the evolution of reusable engineering and platform capabilities that accelerate the firm's transition to a build‑capable technology organization.

This position can sit in any of our U.S. offices and offers a hybrid work schedule.

• Provide strategic leadership for engineering and application development teams supporting firmwide legal and business capabilities across value streams.
• Set technical direction, architectural standards, and engineering practices to ensure solutions are secure, scalable, maintainable, and operationally sustainable.
• Partner closely with IT, legal operations, and business stakeholders to translate business outcomes and value stream priorities into executable technology roadmaps and engineering delivery strategies, keeping a user experience and product value mindset at the forefront.
• Lead engineering execution and continuous delivery of technology capabilities, balancing innovation, platform stability, technical debt reduction, risk management, and operational excellence.
• Collaborate across IT functions to improve delivery flow, reduce bottlenecks, and increase engineering throughput and reliability.
• Oversee engineering efforts across multiple product and platform work streams, balancing innovation, operational stability, quality, risk, and delivery commitments.
• Establish and promote engineering best practices including automation, CI/CD, observability, resiliency, testing, reusable engineering capabilities, and operational readiness.
• Manage engineering budgets, vendor relationships, consultant resources, and third‑party development partners as applicable to the success of the service portfolio and deliverables.
• Lead, develop, and retain engineering management and senior technical talent, including performance management and succession planning.
• Establish governance, metrics, and reporting for engineering performance, platform health, technical debt, operational sustainability, and delivery outcomes.
• Ensure compliance with firm security, risk, governance, privacy, and data protection standards across all engineering activities.
• Partner with infrastructure, operations, SRE, and end‑user support teams to ensure stable production operations and smooth lifecycle support for delivered capabilities.
• Provide leadership to and manage a team of business professionals to include coaching, mentoring and professional development. Responsible for providing performance feedback on a regular basis.

Enterprise application architecture and modern development practices. Strategic planning and execution in complex environments. People leadership and organizational development. Financial and vendor management. Stakeholder partnership and executive communication. Risk management, security awareness, and operational excellence.

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

• Master's Degree in Technology, business, or management‑related discipline.

• Relevant certifications in cloud platforms, architecture, or technology leadership are preferred.

• 10+ years of progressive experience in software engineering or application development, including at least five years in a senior…