Director of Applied Innovation - York, NE

Central Valley Ag Cooperative•York, NE

10d

About The Position

The Director of Applied Innovation leads a small team responsible for building, deploying, and operating Central Valley Ag’s custom business applications, including RouteForge, Gravis, the grower portal, and future products. This is a working leadership role: the Director sets direction and develops the team while personally designing, writing, reviewing, and troubleshooting application code. The team uses AI-assisted development as a normal part of its work and is measured by delivery of usable software to CVA employees and growers. The Director owns the application portfolio roadmap and production availability, the experience of application users, and the practices and support capabilities needed to operate the portfolio reliably. The role partners with business leaders, Enterprise Architecture, IT Infrastructure, IT Security, and the Director of Data & AI Enablement, while managing application vendors, cloud spending, and licensing. The position directly supervises an Applied Innovation Engineer and an Applied Innovation Analyst and reports delivery, risk, and portfolio health to the Chief Technology Officer and business leadership. Work may be based at any Central Valley Ag location or performed remotely. Periodic travel to CVA locations is expected for user engagement, onboarding, and team meetings. Occasional after-hours work may be needed for deployments and production issues. Employment is contingent upon agreement to CVA’s confidentiality, intellectual property, and non-disclosure terms. Work product created in the course of employment is the sole and exclusive property of Central Valley Ag Cooperative.

Requirements

Seven or more years of experience building and supporting business software, including substantial time in a hands-on engineering role.
Demonstrated leadership of a team, product, or significant delivery effort; formal management experience is not required where a clear leadership track record exists.
Hands-on proficiency with a modern application stack, such as TypeScript/JavaScript with React or Next.js, C#, or Python, and with relational databases and SQL.
Experience with cloud application delivery, including deployment, hosting, identity and authentication, secrets management, monitoring, and cost control in AWS and/or Microsoft Azure.
Knowledge of system and data integration, including APIs, file interfaces, and integration with ERP or third-party platforms.
Sound scope judgment, including the ability to decide what not to build and ship a narrow first version that earns the next one.
Strong written and verbal communication with non-technical stakeholders, including the ability to conduct an intake conversation with a business leader and reach a decision.
Demonstrated ownership of production systems, including release management and incident response.
Ability to meet the described physical demands, with reasonable accommodations where applicable.
Agreement to CVA’s confidentiality, intellectual property, and non-disclosure terms is a condition of employment.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in a technology-related field such as computer science, computer information systems, or management information systems.
Working fluency with AI-assisted development, including coding agents and assistants, prompt-driven development, and reviewing AI-generated code to the same standard as handwritten code. Strong engineers eager to adopt these practices will also be considered.
Experience in agriculture, commodities, logistics, or a cooperative.
Experience establishing or turning around a small delivery team.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop the Applied Innovation Engineer and Applied Innovation Analyst, and hire into the team as it grows.
Personally design, develop, and review application code, including handling the hardest technical problems.
Own the application portfolio roadmap, run intake with business leaders, prioritize work by business value, and decide what the team will not build.
Establish and report on a delivery cadence that puts usable software in users’ hands in weeks rather than quarters.
Own production availability, including deployment, release management, monitoring, and incident response.
Establish and enforce engineering practices for version control, testing, code review, release and change management, and documentation.
Establish the team’s AI-assisted development practice, including tooling, review standards, guardrails, and appropriate handling of company and customer data.
Partner with Enterprise Architecture to ensure applications conform to CVA architecture, integration, and data standards.
Partner with IT Infrastructure and IT Security on hosting, identity, access management, and secure development practices.
Equip CVA’s support organization to handle routine business-application support through documentation, runbooks, training, and knowledge transfer; serve as the escalation point.
Coordinate with the Director of Data & AI Enablement, keeping operational business applications within Applied Innovation’s scope and partnering rather than duplicating the data organization’s work.
Manage vendor relationships, cloud spending, and licensing for the application portfolio.
Report delivery, risk, and portfolio health to the Chief Technology Officer and business leadership.
Carry out supervisory responsibilities, including interviewing and hiring, assigning work, coaching, performance management, and addressing employee concerns.
Perform other duties as assigned.