Senior Director of Engineering & Architecture

Innovas

7d•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Director of Engineering & Architecture will build and lead a team of experienced senior software engineers and own the architecture, development, delivery, and ongoing operation of customer-facing products and internal business systems. This is a technical leadership role focused approximately 70% on architecture and hands-on technical execution and 30% on people management and organizational leadership. The role requires broad experience across the application stack and the technical judgment to lead engineers across specialties, technologies, and deployment environments. The team will use AI-assisted development extensively, including AI pair programming and coordinated software development agents, and will build AI capabilities into products. The Senior Director will establish the practices, tools, and oversight needed to use these capabilities to accelerate delivery while maintaining software reliability. The position owns architecture, engineering tools, and technical execution within the strategy, budgets, and hiring plans approved by the CTO. The role translates business and product objectives into technical roadmaps and delivery plans; owns architecture across applications, services, APIs, databases, integrations, and deployment infrastructure; and guides event-sourced, microservice, and containerized systems across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. The Senior Director remains directly involved in technical work, including coding, prototyping, reviews, and resolving complex problems, while managing technical debt and architectural evolution. The position partners with the CTO and business stakeholders on priorities, requirements, acceptance criteria, and product outcomes, and owns engineering delivery from discovery through production operation and improvement. It establishes engineering practices and expectations for testing, security, performance, availability, observability, recovery, releases, and production incident response. It also leads the adoption and oversight of AI-assisted engineering and AI product capabilities, evaluates their effects on delivery speed and quality, and develops the engineering team through hiring, coaching, performance management, planning, and professional development. The position is remote, with travel estimated at up to six weeks per year. It is not assigned to a scheduled on-call rotation, but critical incidents may require availability outside normal business hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. Remote employees are currently accepted only from specified U.S. states: AL, FL, IN, MI, MO, NM, NC, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, and WY. Offers are contingent on successful completion of a standard background check.

Requirements

20+ years of experience in IT and/or software engineering, including substantial hands-on experience designing, building, delivering, and operating complex software systems.
Demonstrable experience across all application-stack layers, including frontend applications, backend services, APIs, databases, integrations, and deployment infrastructure, with practical depth to evaluate decisions and lead across specialties.
Direct experience designing and implementing event-sourced systems, including event persistence, replay, projections, schema evolution, and consistency considerations.
Experience with microservices, containers, distributed systems, and application integration.
Experience delivering and operating applications in both cloud and on-premises environments.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted software development and ability to establish effective practices across a team.
Experience developing AI agents, coordinating multi-agent workflows, and integrating AI capabilities into software products.
Familiarity with Agile software development practices, including Scrum.
Demonstrated ability to deliver working products quickly while maintaining appropriate standards for security, reliability, and maintainability.
Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.
U.S. citizenship.

Nice To Haves

Experience establishing a new engineering team or software development function.
Experience with stakeholder management, requirements gathering, and translating business needs into product and technical decisions.
Business and financial acumen, including understanding budgeting, operating costs, capitalization of labor, return on investment, and technology investment tradeoffs.
Experience with IT infrastructure, including networking, Windows Server and Linux operating systems, and network security.
Experience with Microsoft Azure, including Azure IoT services and frameworks.
Experience integrating with Microsoft Graph API.
An active security clearance.

Responsibilities

Translate business and product objectives into technical roadmaps, architectural decisions, and achievable delivery plans.
Own architecture across frontend applications, backend services, APIs, databases, integrations, and deployment infrastructure.
Design and guide implementation of event-sourced systems, microservices, and containerized applications across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
Select technologies based on product needs, team capabilities, security, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
Stay directly involved through coding, prototyping, design reviews, code reviews, and resolution of complex technical problems.
Manage technical debt and architectural evolution as products and business needs change.
Partner with the CTO and business stakeholders to establish priorities, clarify requirements, define acceptance criteria, and measure product outcomes.
Own engineering delivery from discovery and design through implementation, release, production operation, and ongoing improvement.
Establish practices for source control, automated testing, continuous integration and delivery, documentation, and release management.
Apply Agile practices, including Scrum where appropriate, to support rapid iteration, transparent progress, and predictable delivery.
Establish expectations for application security, performance, availability, observability, and recovery in coordination with infrastructure and security partners.
Lead engineering responses to production issues and ensure lessons learned result in lasting improvements.
Establish effective use of AI as a pair-programming partner in design, implementation, testing, debugging, and documentation.
Lead development and adoption of AI agents and orchestration frameworks that delegate tasks, coordinate work, and evaluate results across agents.
Define human review, testing, access controls, and accountability for AI-generated code and agent actions.
Guide integration of AI capabilities into products, evaluating accuracy, reliability, security, and user value.
Measure the effect of AI-assisted workflows on delivery speed and software quality, and refine practices based on results.
Build, lead, and develop the engineering team, establishing clear ownership and accountability for architecture, delivery, quality, and production support.
Set team and individual goals and priorities with the CTO, translate product objectives into achievable plans, and align engineering capacity with business needs.
Provide technical mentorship, coaching, actionable feedback, and performance reviews; address performance gaps and support career growth.
Assess skills gaps and establish training and development plans across architecture, engineering practices, AI-assisted development, security, and production operations.
Recruit, onboard, and retain qualified engineers; encourage knowledge sharing, cross-training, and increasing technical ownership while providing appropriate autonomy.
Develop, manage, and forecast the engineering budget and resource plan with the CTO, aligning staffing, tools, infrastructure, external support, and professional development with approved priorities.
Build a culture of collaboration, constructive technical debate, accountability, and continuous learning; help resolve competing priorities and deliver dependable results.
Plan engineering capacity and resource needs, and communicate progress, risks, dependencies, and investment needs to the CTO.
During escalated critical incidents, lead the response within the area of responsibility, coordinate teams and providers, support timely decisions and stakeholder communications, and help drive restoration and resolution through closure.

Benefits

Medical and dental insurance; the company pays 92% of premiums for individual and family coverage.
Fully covered vision insurance.
401(k) with employer match up to 4%.
Paid sick and safe leave, paid floating holidays, and generous vacation.
Company-paid basic life and AD&D policy.
Voluntary life insurance.
Flexible and remote work structure.
Wellness reimbursement plan and mental health support.
Community sponsorships.
Donation matching.
Professional development allowance.