Director, Research and Development

Job description

Key Responsibilities Define and execute the technology and development strategy for the LocalGov business unit. Provide leadership and oversight for all software development activities across eight product lines and approximately 40+ development professionals. Advance LocalGov's development teams along the Harris AI-SDLC maturity model - from AI-assisted work, to AI-directed work, to agentic delivery in which AI agents own bounded work end to end while engineers set goals, define guardrails, and review outcomes. Lead modernization efforts across IBM i, RPG, and modern technology platforms while preserving customer stability and business continuity. Establish engineering standards, development methodologies, and governance processes to improve quality, predictability, and delivery performance. Partner with Product Management, Client Services, Professional Services, Sales, and Business Unit leadership to align development priorities with customer and business needs. Develop and maintain multi-year product and technology roadmaps across the LocalGov portfolio. Build, develop, and mentor engineering leaders and technical teams while fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement. Oversee development capacity planning, resource allocation, and prioritization across competing initiatives and product lines. Use AI development tools personally and daily, and champion their use across the organization - including GitHub Copilot, Project Bob, large language models, and agentic coding tools - holding a current, practical command of what they can and cannot do rather than relying on secondhand reporting. Establish and monitor KPIs that measure outcomes rather than activity - cycle time, development throughput, escaped defect and escalation rates, delivery predictability, customer satisfaction, and development cost as a percentage of revenue - and report AI delivery maturity and the business outcomes it produces on a recurring executive cadence. Own the LocalGov AI delivery-maturity roadmap across all eight product lines, applied stage by stage across the software lifecycle rather than as a single business-unit rating, and deliver against the maturity targets agreed with executive leadership. Stand up the governance that makes delegated agent work safe, including review gates, validation, and security review of AI-generated code, with quality standards applied equally to human-written and AI-generated code. Make the LocalGov codebase and delivery pipeline accessible to AI agents through documentation, test coverage, CI/CD, and structured context. Apply AI directly to the IBM i and RPG estate - legacy code comprehension, documentation generation, and modernization analysis - as a primary mechanism for preserving knowledge held by an aging and retiring RPG skillset. Build the tooling and training program that moves engineers from AI-assisted work, to AI-directed work, to supervised agent execution, and give them the access and time to get there. Lead strategic modernization and transformation initiatives including cloud adoption, customer-facing AI solutions, and automation efforts. Ensure appropriate architecture, security, compliance, and technical governance practices are maintained across all products. Serve as the executive escalation point for critical development issues and strategic customer initiatives. Develop succession planning and knowledge preservation strategies for aging legacy technology skillsets. Manage OpEx Financial Forecast for R&D department to include monthly forecast updates, reporting on Monthly Business Unit Review Calls, & attendance/participation Annual Businesss Strategy Meeting. Attendance to key customer events in markets where large-scale development motions are occurring Required Qualifications 10+ years of progressive software development leadership experience. 5+ years of experience leading managers, technical leaders, and software development teams within a multi-product software organization. Demonstrated experience leading software modernization initiatives involving both legacy and modern technology platforms. Experience managing geographically distributed development teams and cross-functional technical organizations. Strong understanding of software development lifecycles, Agile methodologies, and engineering best practices. Experience with enterprise software delivery, product strategy, and technical roadmap development. Proven ability to align technology investments and development priorities with business objectives and customer needs. Demonstrated experience driving organizational change and technology transformation initiatives. Experience implementing or leading AI-assisted development practices, automation initiatives, or engineering productivity improvements. Demonstrated hands-on use of AI development tools in daily work, with a clear point of view on where they help, where they fail, and how quickly that is changing. Experience raising an engineering organization's way of working from individual AI assistance toward agentic, human-on-the-loop delivery, including the governance and validation that makes it safe. Exceptional communication, organizational, stakeholder management, and executive leadership skills. Preferred Qualifications Experience with IBM i, AS400, RPG, COBOL, or legacy platform modernization initiatives. Experience with local government, public sector, ERP, tax, financial, records management, or government technology solutions. Experience with AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Project Bob, LLMs, or similar technologies. Experience establishing engineering KPIs, delivery metrics, and AI adoption measurement programs. Experience leading engineering organizations through large-scale modernization or digital transformation efforts. Familiarity with cloud technologies, APIs, automation frameworks, and modern application architectures. Experience building and scaling high-performing engineering teams across multiple product lines. Experience integrating AI into engineering workflows, customer solutions, or business operations. Experience with Jira, DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software delivery methodologies. MBA, advanced technical experience, or equivalent executive leadership experience preferred. Performance Measurement Success in this role is measured on the following: AI-SDLC maturity: development teams advancing toward Level 3 of the Harris AI maturity model, measured stage by stage across the software lifecycle and by product line, rather than as a single business-unit rating. Team capability: a training and upskilling program in place and taken up, moving engineers from AI-assisted work, to AI-directed work, to supervised agent execution. Continuity and succession depth: no product line dependent on a single individual, with documented knowledge, cross-coverage between engineers, and succession identified for every critical technical role. Retention: key engineering talent retained across all eight product lines. Modernization progress: a published modernization plan covering the legacy IBM i, RPG, and COBOL estate, and demonstrated progress against it, with knowledge captured in durable documentation rather than individual memory. Financial performance: R&D spend held to plan, with demonstrable optimization of development cost against delivered output. Cross-functional standing: Product Management, Client Services, Professional Services, and Sales report a working, transparent relationship with R&D. Salary range: $125,000 - $135,000 USD per year.