Director of Engineering - A&D

As Director of Engineering for our Defense solutions, you lead the engineering teams that build software for U.S. defense operators who keep their fleets and platforms mission-ready. The role is a player-coach position: you carry the technical depth of a Principal Engineer or Architect, guide architectural decisions, and take direct responsibility for hiring, developing and retaining engineers. Teams own the full delivery lifecycle, and AI fluency is central to the role.

Responsibilities

Lead and grow engineers: hire, onboard, coach and develop software engineers across the full career ladder; Be the technical leader: participate in architecture reviews, guide technology choices, and set the technical bar for the Defense solutions portfolio; Own delivery outcomes: ensure teams deliver high-quality software at a sustainable pace; Drive engineering excellence: CI/CD, automated testing, observability, infrastructure as code and secure-by-default design; Champion AI fluency: drive adoption of AI-assisted development and AI-powered product features; Remove obstacles: resolve cross-team dependencies and shield teams from organizational noise; Partner across the business: work with Product Management, Design, Architecture and senior leadership, and engage with defense customers in technical discussions; Shape engineering culture: foster continuous learning, healthy debate and ownership

Requirements

Significant experience in software engineering, with a track record of operating at Principal Engineer or Architect level (system design, cross-team architectural thinking and technology strategy); Proven experience managing and developing engineering teams, including hiring, performance management and career development, with a coaching mindset; 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 languages (e.g., Go, Python, Java, C#, TypeScript); AI fluency: hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools, understanding of AI/ML integration patterns (RAG, agents, prompt engineering, evaluation), and a track record of 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; Eligibility: based in the United States and able to meet the eligibility requirements for U.S. defense work for this requisition

Nice to have

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 (MLOps pipelines, AI safety and governance practices, or AI evaluation frameworks); Experience working in or with Aerospace & Defense organizations, or on solutions for asset, maintenance, MRO or fleet-readiness management; Background across multiple engineering disciplines (e.g., 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 (OWASP, threat modeling, security tooling in CI/CD); Experience with organizational design (team structures, team topologies and scaling engineering organizations)

Benefits

Flexible paid time off, including sick and holiday; Medical, dental, & vision insurance; 401K with Company contribution; Flexible spending accounts; Life insurance and disability benefits; Tuition assistance; Community involvement and volunteering events