Software Director, Technical Excellence

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and define strategic vision for technical priorities within Software discipline, aligned to long-term sector strategy.
• Regularly interface with EI&E discipline leads to identify program needs and close gaps in engineering tools, processes, digital solutions, and technical training.
• Lead the development, deployment, and sustainment of sector-wide engineering tools, standardized processes, digital solutions, and technical training—ensuring they are relevant, scalable, and interoperable across programs.
• Oversee and allocate the discipline’s NCTA and indirect budgets to strengthen technical excellence; advance tools, processes, and workforce capabilities; and generate measurable impact on program performance and future competitiveness.
• Build and sustain a strong Software Community of Practice (CoP), ensuring alignment of sub‑CoPs, strategies, and priorities while fostering collaboration across programs and sub-disciplines.
• Represent the discipline in sector‑wide and enterprise‑wide technical development efforts related to technical development, technical career pathing, technical training, and critical skills investment.
• Participate in sector‑level talent reviews and succession planning to maintain discipline‑wide visibility into talent strengths, gaps, and growth opportunities.
• Partner with EI&E leads to understand program critical skill needs and collaborate with SI&O to translate skill needs into funded technical training programs and onboarding frameworks.
• Provide leadership, alignment, and support to NG Fellows within the discipline to advance sector‑ and enterprise‑wide emerging technologies and future workforce capabilities.
• Contribute technical expertise and process leadership in major proposal reviews, program reviews, independent technical reviews, program stand‑up reviews, NCTA and indirect activities, and other sector‑wide improvement efforts.
• Act as a trusted advisor to help resolve technical performance shortfalls through root‑cause analysis, corrective action planning, long‑term verification of improvement.
• Capture, share, and embed lessons learned and best practices across programs to continuously raise the bar for technical performance.

Requirements

• Must have a Bachelor’s of Science degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline AND 9 years of related professional/military experience within the Aerospace and Defense industry that includes a background in leadership positions, OR a Master’s of Science degree in a STEM discipline and 7 years of related professional/military experience within the Aerospace and Defense industry that includes a background in leadership positions
• Minimum 6 years of Software leadership/management experience in an integrated product team environment leading agile development teams
• Experience working across the total program lifecycle
• Expertise in establishing engineering standards, tools, and processes at scale
• Experience in defining and developing software processes and defining tools in alignment with the DOD Dev*Ops Reference architecture
• Experience with or exposure to digital design initiatives and solutions
• Experience with commercial Software licensing models and managing commercial software tool portfolios
• Knowledge of modern industry practices for developing software defined systems
• Experience in Avionics, Vehicle, Systems Engineering, Global Supply Chain, and Test processes and tools where they overlap and /or are adjacent to Software processes and tools.