Director, Application Development

Hanwha Energy USA•Houston, TX

1h•Onsite

About The Position

Hanwha Energy USA, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is part of the Hanwha Group—a FORTUNE Global 300 company and one of South Korea’s most respected business enterprises. With over a decade of experience delivering high-quality, utility-scale energy projects across North America, Hanwha Energy USA has evolved into a comprehensive energy solutions provider. Our portfolio now spans utility-scale renewables, natural gas generation, retail electricity, and strategic partnerships that power America’s growing data center industry. Our expertise covers the entire energy value chain—from project development and engineering to construction, operations, and maintenance. By integrating advanced technologies, proven processes, and strong partnerships, we deliver reliable, customized solutions that meet the dynamic needs of local energy markets. Hanwha Energy USA is actively advancing strategic initiatives in natural gas generation and data center development, including hyperscaler solutions on both sides of the meter. We are proud to serve as the parent company of: Hanwha Renewables – specializing in utility-scale solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) Chariot Energy – providing retail electricity services for residential, commercial, and industrial customers in deregulated markets We are seeking a Director of Application Development to lead the strategy, design, and delivery of modern business applications across the enterprise. This leader will own and actively contribute to the application roadmap, including internal applications, AI-powered solutions, agent-based automations, and integrations that support multiple business units. This is a hands-on leadership role for a player-coach who can operate at both the strategic and technical levels. The ideal candidate will shape solution designs, review code and architecture, partner with business leaders on priorities, and guide a team of full-stack and AI developers through high-quality execution. This role is also responsible for balancing new feature delivery, technical debt reduction, platform stability, and vendor-supported initiatives. The employee may be required to perform other job-related duties as requested by management. All duties will be assigned in accordance with applicable laws and company policies.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field. Equivalent experience may be considered.
15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, application development, or application architecture.
5+ years in a leadership role managing developers, technical leads, or engineering teams.
Proven experience leading full-stack application delivery in a business environment with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
Strong experience with modern application architecture, APIs, integrations, cloud-based development, and secure application design.
Experience leading or contributing to AI-enabled applications, agent workflows, copilots, automations, or LLM-based solutions in an enterprise setting.
Demonstrated ability to review code, shape technical designs, and guide teams through complex implementation decisions.
Experience managing a mix of full-time employees, contractors, and vendor partners.
Strong communication skills with the ability to engage technical teams, business leaders, and executive stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Azure-based application development and services.
Experience with AI/LLM tools such as Azure OpenAI and related orchestration, prompt, retrieval, or agent patterns.
Experience with DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, code quality controls, and modern software delivery practices.
Experience in environments with custom business applications, enterprise integrations, and a blend of in-house and vendor-supported platforms.
Experience in regulated, operationally complex, or multi-business-unit environments.

Responsibilities

Own the enterprise application development roadmap across business units, aligning delivery with company priorities, operational needs, and long-term technology strategy.
Personally contribute to application planning, solution design, architecture reviews, and technical decision-making.
Lead the design and delivery of internal and customer-facing applications, AI agents, copilots, and workflow automations.
Review code, technical designs, and implementation approaches to ensure quality, scalability, security, maintainability, and alignment with standards.
Mentor and lead full-stack developers, AI developers, and contractors through hands-on coaching, pairing on complex stories, and continuous technical guidance.
Establish and enforce engineering standards, development practices, documentation expectations, and design review disciplines.
Balance new feature delivery with technical debt management, application modernization, supportability, and vendor coordination.
Partner closely with business stakeholders, product/process leaders, data teams, infrastructure teams, and security teams to deliver practical, high-impact solutions.
Oversee vendor-delivered application work and ensure external partners meet architectural, quality, delivery, and support expectations.
Drive sound application architecture decisions, including integration patterns, APIs, data access approaches, identity/security patterns, and cloud design considerations.
Ensure applications are built with operational excellence in mind, including monitoring, logging, performance, resiliency, and support readiness.
Help define delivery priorities, sprint outcomes, resource plans, and tradeoff decisions across multiple initiatives.
Promote responsible adoption of AI-enabled development and automation capabilities while maintaining guardrails, governance, and business value focus.