Systems Technical Director

At ICF Next, we are fearless in finding new ways to solve problems, relentless in making sure it pays off for our clients and committed to making a positive change in the world.

Join our community of mission-driven creatives, communicators, strategists, and technologists to challenge the status quo.

You’ll serve as the senior engineering leader for a cross-functional program that includes engineering team leads, software engineers, solution and cloud architects, database administrators, Dev Sec Ops  engineers, quality assurance specialists, user experience professionals, business analysts, product managers, data analysts, accessibility and security specialists, and behavioral health subject matter experts. We partner with federal stakeholders to operate and modernise a mission-critical data collection and performance reporting platform used by grantees and program staff.

In this programme‑level role, you will serve as the overall technical authority for platform operations and maintenance and for development, modernisation, and enhancement. You will connect architecture, delivery, operations and modernisation into a coherent plan; guide multiple engineering work streams and team leads; make and document consequential technical decisions; establish shared standards; and ensure releases are secure, testable, supportable and aligned with programme priorities.

You will remain close enough to the technology to evaluate designs, challenge assumptions, troubleshoot difficult issues, and advise the client on options and trade‑offs. A key part of the work is balancing reliable operation of the current .NET platform with incremental modernisation, improved cloud and deployment practices, stronger data quality, better observability and a sustainable path for reducing technical debt.

• Define and maintain the programme engineering strategy, technical roadmap, architecture guardrails and incremental modernisation approach.
• Lead engineering team leads and multiple development work streams by aligning priorities, capacity, dependencies, standards and delivery expectations.
• Provide technical direction for .NET applications, APIs, domain and data models, SQL Server solutions, system integrations and cloud‑hosted services.
• Establish programme‑wide practices for secure development, automated testing, code review, CI/CD, release readiness, documentation and production support.
• Evaluate technical options and communicate recommendations, costs, risks, dependencies and trade‑offs to programme leadership and federal stakeholders.
• Partner with product and delivery leaders to shape release plans, estimates, staffing needs and acceptance criteria that are technically achievable.
• Coordinate architecture and delivery across cloud, Dev Sec Ops , database, security, quality assurance, accessibility, data, user experience and operations teams.
• Identify and manage technical debt, performance constraints, reliability risks, integration dependencies and modernisation sequencing.
• Oversee response to complex production issues, root‑cause analysis, corrective actions and improvements to monitoring and operational readiness.
• Mentor engineering leads and senior engineers, strengthen technical decision‑making and build consistent engineering practices across the programme.
• Maintain technical roadmaps, decision records, interface documentation, standards and executive‑ready status reporting.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, information systems or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 7+ years delivering and supporting resilient, well‑tested production web applications, including 3+ years working with C#, .NET or .NET Core,…