Director of Engineering - A&D

IFS•Itasca, IL

10d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Engineering leads engineering teams building IFS Defense solutions for U.S. defense operators. This is a player-coach role requiring technical depth at the Principal Engineer or Architect level alongside direct responsibility for hiring, developing, and retaining engineers. The director guides architecture and technology choices, sets technical standards, and remains close to engineering work through design reviews, code reasoning, and resolving difficult technical problems. Teams own the full delivery lifecycle—design, development, testing, deployment, and operations—with a you-build-it, you-run-it approach. The director enables teams to deliver reliable, secure, compliant software at a sustainable pace, and drives practical AI adoption in both development workflows and product capabilities, accounting for strict data-handling and deployment constraints. The role partners with Product Management, Design, Architecture, senior leadership, and defense customers to align technical execution with product strategy and mission needs. It also supports a culture of ownership, continuous learning, and technical specialization across engineering disciplines. The position is based in the United States, and the candidate must meet eligibility requirements for U.S. defense work.

Requirements

Significant software engineering experience, with a track record operating at Principal Engineer or Architect level, including system design, cross-team architecture, and technology strategy.
Proven experience managing and developing engineering teams, including hiring, performance management, and career development.
Strong hands-on background in cloud-native architectures, microservices, API-first design, CI/CD, containerization, and infrastructure as code.
Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages, such as Go, Python, Java, C#, or TypeScript.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and understanding of AI/ML integration patterns, including RAG, agents, prompt engineering, and evaluation.
Experience driving AI adoption within engineering teams.
Experience leading teams that own development, testing, deployment, and production operations.
Ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and translate business and mission needs into engineering direction.
Must be based in the United States and able to meet eligibility requirements for U.S. defense work for this requisition.

Nice To Haves

Experience delivering software to defense, government, or other regulated customers, including security accreditation, restricted or disconnected networks, and controlled-data handling.
Experience in enterprise software or SaaS product development at scale.
Experience building or leading teams that ship AI-powered product capabilities, including MLOps pipelines, AI safety and governance practices, or AI evaluation frameworks.
Experience in or with Aerospace & Defense organizations, or with asset, maintenance, MRO, or fleet-readiness management solutions.
Background across multiple engineering disciplines, such as front-end and back-end or platform and application development.
Experience with event-driven architectures, message brokers, and streaming platforms.
Track record of modernizing legacy systems or migrating to cloud-native architectures.
Familiarity with security practices such as OWASP, threat modeling, and security tooling in CI/CD.
Experience with organizational design, including team structures, team topologies, and scaling engineering organizations.

Responsibilities

Hire, onboard, coach, and develop software engineers across career levels, including performance management and career development.
Lead architecture reviews, guide technology choices, set technical standards, and review or reason about production code.
Ensure teams deliver high-quality software at a sustainable pace while balancing technical quality with business and mission value.
Promote modern engineering practices, including CI/CD, automated testing, observability, infrastructure as code, and secure-by-default design.
Drive adoption of AI-assisted development and support teams in building and validating AI-powered product features, with responsible guardrails.
Resolve cross-team dependencies, remove obstacles, and protect teams from organizational distractions.
Collaborate with Product Management, Design, Architecture, and senior leadership to align technical work with product strategy.
Engage directly with defense customers through technical discussions, workshops, and co-creation.
Foster continuous learning, constructive debate, ownership, and growth of engineering specialisms.