Senior Director of Engineering

Job description

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD The Campaign Finance Board is a nonpartisan, independent city agency that empowers New Yorkers to have a greater impact on their elections. Our mission is to make local democracy more open, transparent, and equitable by removing barriers to participation. We make it easier for New Yorkers to vote, meaningfully support candidates for city office, and run for office themselves. NYC Votes, our voter engagement initiative, meets people where they are to share trustworthy election information and help New Yorkers make a plan to vote. We publish the citywide Voter Guide, which delivers information about candidates directly to voters’ doors. Our public matching funds program ensures small contributions can make a big difference, allowing regular people to run for office by relying on the support of other regular people, not just wealthy donors and special interests. And we lift the veil on how candidates raise and spend money, increasing transparency and accountability in local government. We believe that when every New Yorker is empowered to participate meaningfully in elections, candidates will better reflect the communities they serve, elected leaders will be more accountable to the public, and New Yorkers will have a democracy they can truly trust. ABOUT THE UNIT Strategy, Products, and Innovation Division The Strategy, Products, and Innovation (SPI) division is where the agency plans its future and builds it. SPI brings together long-term planning, research and policy implementation, product development, and technology modernization operating across the agency to test new ideas and turn them into lasting improvements and new experiences. Across all of its work, the division is committed to advancing a democracy that is more open, transparent, and equitable for all New Yorkers. Technology Department The Technology Department builds, maintains, and secures the systems that make New York City’s campaign finance program work. This is the team behind CSMART, CFIS, FACTS, and the agency’s website, the platforms that power public matching funds, disclosure, and compliance for campaigns across the city. The department is in the middle of an ambitious modernization migrating core systems to the cloud, integrating modern software solutions where they fit, and building infrastructure engineered for the security, reliability, and scale that high-stakes public systems demand. Members of the team write and maintain custom software, strengthen the agency’s cybersecurity posture, and turn a legacy environment into a modern one. For engineers who want their work to matter, the mission of this team is to build the technology that makes democracy work better for all. JOB DESCRIPTION The New York City Campaign Finance Board seeks a Senior Director of Engineering to lead the engineering function that builds and runs the technology behind New York City's public matching funds program, the Voter Guide, and the agency's campaign finance disclosure and compliance systems. For engineers who want their work to matter, this is the seat that shapes how campaign finance, voter education, and public matching funds get built for the next decade of New York elections. The platforms that power every city election are in the middle of a multi-year modernization from legacy .NET onto cloud-native Python infrastructure, targeting completion in 2027. This senior leadership role owns the multi-year technical roadmap end to end, supervising software development, quality assurance, and Salesforce engineering, with data engineering operating as an agency-wide shared platform service that supports analytics and research teams across the agency. Within 6 to 12 months of hire, the role expands to include direct oversight of Infrastructure and Cybersecurity, consolidating engineering accountability across the agency's technical stack. This is a turnaround leadership role. The Senior Director inherits a function with inconsistent engineering practice, meaningful technical debt, and technical leaders who are being tasked with growing their managerial capabilities. Building baseline engineering discipline, developing managerial capability, and delivering reliable services through active transformation are the core of the first two years. This is also a build role. The Senior Director stands up a Salesforce engineering function from scratch, matures a data engineering operation into a shared platform service, and reskills a technical workforce alongside vendor knowledge transfer. The role is designed for an engineering leader earlier in their leadership career, someone with the technical credibility to earn trust across engineering teams and the appetite to build practices where they do not yet exist. Key Responsibilities Leadership Development and Organizational Management - Build, supervise and mentor a leadership team across engineering functions (software development, quality assurance, Salesforce engineering, data engineering, and infrastructure), establishing clear accountability and developing managerial capability within the engineering organization. - Work with CFB leadership and internal partners to implement baseline people management practices, including hiring, performance management, career development, feedback, evaluation and retention strategies that attract and retain engineering talent in the public sector. - Foster an engineering culture that prioritizes collaborative problem-solving, knowledge-sharing, accountability, and continuous improvement across technical teams and agency-wide partnerships. - In partnership with the Senior Director of Product, work with CFB leadership and internal partners to expand knowledge, engagement and comfort with the software development lifecycle, agile processes and product thinking, to ensure a balanced mixture of maintenance and stability, quality-of-life improvements and ambitious experimentation and innovation. Strategic Technology Planning and Engineering Standards - Set and track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). - Develop and maintain a multiyear technical roadmap that aligns engineering work with the agency's product roadmap, digital priorities, and modernization goals. - Establish, document, and enforce engineering standards, including coding standards, branching strategy, security policies, compliance requirements, and architecture review practices. - Evaluate emerging technologies (including cloud-based solutions, open-source tools, and AI applications) and recommend adoption decisions appropriate to public-sector cost, risk, and capability constraints. Software Development, QA, and AI Implementation Leadership - Develop and maintain a standard tracking system and reporting standards to track delivery flow, predictability, quality, and end-to-end traceability. - Lead the agency's software development and quality assurance functions, including supervision of engineering managers. - Own the software development lifecycle, DevOps, and CI/CD pipelines. Drive agile delivery practices in coordination with product leadership. - Own the technical implementation of AI use cases (building, integrating, and operating models in production as software delivery) and the technical evaluation of whether a model performs against the data provided (capability, accuracy, latency, cost, and technical security). - Manage technical debt proactively and make sound architecture decisions. Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Oversight - Provide senior-level oversight of the agency's IT infrastructure and cybersecurity functions, including network architecture, cloud infrastructure, end-user computing, helpdesk operations, and the agency's cybersecurity posture. - Ensure alignment with citywide IT standards (NYC Office of Technology and Innovation) and cybersecurity requirements (NYC Cyber Command). - Lead disaster readiness and business continuity planning. Data Engineering Build and Operations - Oversee the agency's data engineering build-and-operations function, delivering secure, scalable data infrastructure to enterprise governance standards. - Oversee design, construction, and operation of modern data architecture (the data lakehouse, real-time API integrations, and ETL/ELT pipelines). - Provide senior technical oversight of major data-architecture build decisions, including evaluating vendor-built data infrastructure for soundness and scalability. - Operate the function as an agency-wide shared platform service serving distributed analytics and research teams. Salesforce Engineering Buildout - Build, from the ground up, an in-house Salesforce engineering function responsible for the codebase, configurations, documentation, and infrastructure of the agency's Salesforce instances. - Hire a Director of Salesforce Engineering and establish team structure, processes, and standards. - Establish in-house procedures for bug fixes, service requests, and feature enhancements. - Ensure Salesforce use aligns with NYC Cyber Command, internal security policy, and records retention requirements. Vendor Delivery Oversight and Workforce Development - Provide senior technical oversight of strategic technology vendors, with the depth required to evaluate what is being built rather than relying on vendor self-reporting. - Hold vendors accountable for scope, quality, and delivery commitments. - Lead the agency's technical workforce development strategy, including reskilling programs and structured, time-bound knowledge transfer from vendors to internal staff. - Manage technical hiring across engineering teams, in coordination with the agency's hiring prioritization plan. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES & OTHER BEHAVIORS (KSAOs) We're seeking individuals eager to make an impact, even if they don't tick every box on our job description. We believe in the power of diverse perspectives and the unique blend of lived experiences, non-traditional education pathways, practical know-how, and a variety of skills and abilities that each candidate brings to the table. If you're ready to learn and grow with us, we encourage you to apply and be part of our dynamic team. Knowledge - Software development lifecycle, DevOps, and CI/CD practices applied to enterprise-scale systems. - Building, integrating, and operating AI/ML use cases in production as software delivery, and technical model evaluation (capability, accuracy, latency, cost, and technical security). - Modern data architecture build, including data lakehouse construction, ETL/ELT pipelines, and real-time API integrations, sufficient to oversee delivery. - Enterprise network architecture, cloud infrastructure, and the relationship between infrastructure decisions and application engineering outcomes. - Building a technical function from scratch (Salesforce, data engineering), including team structure, hiring plan, and operating model. Skills - Supervising and developing engineering managers and directors, including building managerial capability in technical leaders who have functioned primarily as individual contributors, with genuine investment in growing technical leaders into effective managers and patience for development timelines. - Establishing, documenting, and enforcing engineering standards across teams previously operating without consistent practice. - Providing senior technical oversight of vendor-built data infrastructure, with the depth to evaluate architectural soundness rather than rely on vendor self-reporting. - Evaluating vendor-built technology with sufficient depth to identify architectural or quality concerns before they become operational failures. - Diagnosing root causes across technical debt, organizational structure, and people capability simultaneously, distinguishing between individual capability gaps and systemic process gaps. - Partnering with product, data, project management, design, and executive leadership at a peer level, building trust and alignment across functions. - Communicating technical decisions, tradeoffs, and risks to non-technical executive audiences in language that resonates with decision-makers. Abilities - Build and operate a data-platform function as an agency-wide shared service, with consumers and governance standards outside the engineering org. - Lead organizational change, including moving teams from waterfall or ad hoc practices to disciplined agile delivery. - Maintain momentum through multi-year modernization initiatives, with comfort operating in environments where processes do not yet exist and willingness to adjust approach based on what emerges during implementation. - Builds trust and alignment across product, data, project management, design, and non-technical executive audiences; treats peer partners (including external governance bodies) as collaborators rather than obstacles. Other Characteristics - Demonstrates technical credibility with engineering teams, earning trust through informed judgment rather than positional authority. - Demonstrates a partnership orientation across the standards/build seam, treating data governance standards owned outside the engineering chain as a peer authority rather than a constraint to negotiate around. - Demonstrates a security-first orientation, treating compliance and risk management as foundational rather than supplementary. - Demonstrates a turnaround disposition, comfortable building practices that do not yet exist and managing through resistance from staff accustomed to prior ways of working. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS These are qualifications that would be helpful but are not essential to being successful in the role. Candidates with these qualifications will be given preference in the selection process. - Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a closely related field (master's preferred). - 15+ years of progressive software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in engineering leadership roles. - Demonstrated experience building and operating data engineering functions as shared platform services. - Hands-on experience with Python-based development, cloud-native architecture (AWS/Azure/GCP), and modern CI/CD tooling. - Experience modernizing legacy systems and managing technical debt at scale. - Public-sector, civic tech, or highly regulated industry leadership experience. _________________________________________________________________________________ APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS While completing the application, candidates are invited to provide a cover letter via “attachment” or the “Message to the Hiring Team” field on SmartRecruiters. ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE PROGRAM MA - 06939 - A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college including or supplemented by at least twelve-semester credits (or the equivalent of twelve-semester credits) in accounting, auditing, business or public administration, computer science, economics, finance, statistics, graphic design, personnel or human resources administration, user experience design, or a closely related area of study and one year of satisfactory full-time experience in accounting, auditing (including compliance or investigative auditing), business or public administration, business analysis, computer science, database administration, economics, finance, fiscal or economic management or research, statistics, graphic design, personnel or human resources administration, user experience design, or a closely related field; or - A four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent and five years of experience as described in “1” above; or - Education and/or experience equivalent to “1” above. The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.