Director, Software Development

PowerPlan, Inc•Atlanta, GA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Engineering at PowerPlan is a senior technology leader responsible for building, scaling, and operating the next generation architecture PowerPlan’s cloud-native SaaS platform modernizing a decades trusted regulated utility product suite. This role is accountable for turning strategy into execution: delivering modern architecture, accelerating SaaS adoption, improving engineering productivity, and ensuring security, reliability, and compliance while maintaining the trust of utility customers who operate in highly regulated environments. This leader is hands on where it matters, deeply accountable for outcomes, and a role model for PowerPlan’s culture of ownership, clarity, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years leading large, multi-team organizations.
Proven experience modernizing enterprise SaaS platforms from legacy architectures.
Strong track record of delivering complex, multi year transformations.
Deep understanding of cloud platforms (Azure preferred), distributed systems and service ownership, enterprise integration patterns, AI, Data platforms and analytics.
Ability to challenge architectural decisions constructively and pragmatically.
Strong executive communication able to explain tradeoffs clearly.
Comfortable balancing speed, quality, cost, and risk.

Nice To Haves

Model Ownership: Problems are owned until resolved.
Model Clarity: Direct communication, clear decisions, minimal ambiguity.
Model Trust & Accountability: High standards with respect and fairness.
Model Customer Empathy: Understanding the operational realities of regulated utilities.
Model Continuous Learning: Willingness to evolve architectures, tools, and leadership approaches.
Model Low Ego, High Impact: Focus on outcomes over titles or turf.

Responsibilities

Deliver measurable progress on NXT adoption (customer migrations, production usage, ARR contribution).
Establish a clear, scalable NXT reference architecture that teams consistently follow.
Improve engineering execution metrics (predictability, cycle time, quality, reliability).
Reduce operational noise (support tickets, manual processes, regressions).
Build a strong bench of leaders (Managers, Directors, Architects) who operate with ownership.
Be viewed by Product, Architecture, CloudOps, InfoSec, and GTM as a trusted execution partner, not a bottleneck.
Own the end-to-end delivery of the NXT engineering roadmap in partnership with Architecture and Product.
Translate architectural vision into clear, executable engineering plans with milestones, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.
Ensure consistent adoption of cloud-native patterns (Azure-first, microservices where appropriate), API-first and integration standards, data platform strategy (Databricks, analytics, reporting), and security-by-design and compliance-ready architectures.
Balance modernization speed with operational safety for regulated utility customers.
Own engineering delivery across new feature development, legacy modernization, SaaS migration, and platform reliability and scalability.
Establish clear ownership models for services, domains, and systems.
Improve SDLC discipline: predictable planning and delivery, strong definition of “done”, reduced rework and technical debt.
Partner with CloudOps and InfoSec to ensure ≥99% uptime, secure, compliant releases, and operational readiness before customer adoption.
Lead and develop Engineering Managers, Directors, and senior ICs.
Set clear expectations for accountability, technical rigor, collaboration, and decision ownership.
Actively coach leaders on translating strategy into execution, managing trade-offs, and giving clear feedback.
Build a culture where problems are surfaced early, decisions are documented, and teams feel ownership, not fear.
Work tightly with Product, Architecture, CloudOps / SaaSOps, InfoSec, and Professional Services & Support.
Provide clear trade-off recommendations when priorities compete.
Represent Engineering in executive-level discussions with data, clarity, and confidence.
Own and report on engineering KPIs, including delivery predictability, SaaS adoption enablement, quality and defect trends, cloud cost efficiency per customer, and support ticket reduction.
Use metrics to drive action, not just reporting.
Continuously improve processes, tooling, and developer experience.