Director, Software

BlueCrest•Danbury, CT

11d

About The Position

The Director, Software is a P&L-owning business unit leader responsible for defining and executing BlueCrest’s software growth agenda and meeting a revenue target. The role translates the company’s long-range software ambition into an actionable growth plan that protects and modernizes the core business while expanding recurring revenue through workflow automation, cloud-enabled services, AI-enabled solutions, data-driven offerings, OEM relationships, and strategic partnerships. The Director connects market opportunities and client needs with portfolio strategy, engineering capacity, commercial models, and investment priorities. This leader establishes planning discipline, cross-functional alignment, and executive visibility to move company-wide software initiatives from concept to measurable business outcomes. The position balances a mature installed base and long product lifecycles with a credible path to modern, scalable growth. The role leads annual and multi-year growth planning, software portfolio and product-line management, workflow, cloud, data, and AI strategy, engineering enablement and modernization, partnership and corporate-development activity, client engagement, and cross-functional governance. It develops business cases, roadmaps, operating reviews, and executive recommendations; coordinates priorities with peer Software LOB leaders and functional teams; and builds accountability across initiative owners without relying on direct reporting authority.

Requirements

Extensive leadership experience in enterprise software, product line management, software strategy, workflow automation, SaaS, cloud services, digital platforms, or related technology businesses.
Demonstrated success developing and executing growth strategies, multi-year product or portfolio roadmaps, and investment cases.
Strong understanding of recurring-revenue models, software economics, pricing and packaging, retention, customer expansion, and go-to-market execution.
Experience working with mature platforms, large installed bases, legacy modernization, integrations, and long-lifecycle enterprise environments.
Working knowledge of AI-enabled technologies, data platforms, workflow orchestration, cloud and hybrid architectures, APIs, cybersecurity, and modern software delivery practices.
Experience evaluating build-versus-buy decisions, OEM relationships, strategic partnerships, and potential acquisitions.
Ability to translate complex market, customer, financial, and technical information into clear executive recommendations and practical action plans.
Strong influence, facilitation, and communication skills, including the ability to align diverse stakeholders without direct authority.
Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, computer science, or a related field required.
Strategic and commercially minded, with a bias toward measurable outcomes.
Customer-centered and externally oriented, with curiosity about adjacent markets and emerging business models.
Pragmatic about modernization in complex, mission-critical environments.
Able to challenge assumptions constructively while remaining collaborative and respectful.
Able to create clarity from ambiguity and convert long-range ambition into sequenced execution.
Credible with executives, clients, engineers, product leaders, commercial teams, and partners.
Disciplined in prioritization, follow-through, and transparent communication.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Lead annual and multi-year software growth planning, translating enterprise strategy into prioritized initiatives and sequenced execution roadmaps.
Define the strategic rationale, target customers, value proposition, route to market, commercial model, capability requirements, investment needs, and success measures for major growth initiatives.
Develop initiative charters, business cases, planning assumptions, and scenarios for recurring revenue, SaaS migration, installed-base conversion, attach rates, pricing, retention, and new-market expansion.
Create executive software growth dashboards, operating reviews, portfolio backlogs, and decision calendars to track progress, revenue indicators, investment, risks, customer validation, and decisions.
Assess portfolio performance, strategic fit, customer relevance, lifecycle position, technical health, and economic contribution; recommend where to invest, modernize, consolidate, partner, maintain, or retire.
Define product-line strategies and roadmaps that balance customer commitments, installed-base continuity, cybersecurity, platform modernization, and growth.
Coordinate portfolio priorities with peer Software LOB leaders to reduce fragmentation and improve reuse of platforms, data, APIs, workflow components, and commercial capabilities.
Partner with Marketing and Sales on segmentation, positioning, packaging, pricing, and launch plans for priority software offers.
Identify opportunities in workflow automation, intelligent orchestration, operational data, AI-enabled offerings, cloud-enabled services, and adjacent markets.
Develop practical AI product strategies that create measurable client value, improve operational performance, and strengthen differentiation.
Explore cloud and hybrid delivery models that support modernization, scalability, faster innovation, and recurring-revenue growth while accounting for mission-critical client environments.
Work with Engineering and Professional Services to identify reusable capabilities and simplify custom or fragmented solution patterns.
Partner with Engineering to identify legacy complexity, duplicate functionality, architectural constraints, technical debt, and modernization opportunities that affect growth capacity.
Prioritize rationalization and platform investments that create engineering capacity for next-generation development, and evaluate AI-assisted development, test automation, DevOps, shared services, and common platforms.
Ensure growth plans account for technical dependencies, resourcing, cybersecurity, and migration paths.
Develop OEM software relationships, technology alliances, integration partnerships, and channel opportunities that extend BlueCrest’s reach and capabilities.
Create partner strategies covering strategic fit, customer value, economics, differentiation, integration requirements, governance, and risk.
Evaluate acquisition targets and partnership opportunities aligned with the Lighthouse 2030 software growth thesis; lead or support diligence, pilot design, negotiation inputs, integration planning, and post-decision value realization.
Engage major accounts, operations leaders, CIOs, and technology organizations to understand future workflow, automation, data, and software needs.
Use voice-of-customer and market validation to test growth hypotheses before significant investment.
Partner with Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, and Strategic Accounts to develop lighthouse customers, pilots, reference cases, and repeatable go-to-market motions.
Help shape subscription, SaaS, usage-based, data-driven, managed-service, and AI-enabled commercial models while protecting and strengthening existing software revenue.
Support enablement materials and executive narratives that connect software capabilities to customer outcomes and measurable value.
Facilitate cross-functional alignment among PLM, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, Strategic Accounts, Finance, IT, Legal, and external partners.
Prepare decision-ready recommendations for senior leadership, including trade-offs, resource implications, financial logic, risks, and required decisions.
Create accountability across initiative owners without direct reporting authority and promote a disciplined test-and-learn culture.