Director of Software Development

Salary Range: $185,000.00 To $220,000.00 Annually

Director of Software Development

Location: Centennial, CO (Hybrid / In-Office)
Company: Yield Solutions Group
Reports to: Chief Technology Officer

The Opportunity

Yield Solutions Group processes 15,000+ auto refinance applications every month across a network of 30+ lending partners. The software running that operation spans borrower-facing applications, lender integrations, and internal operations tooling, all built on AWS, Java Spring Boot, and React.

We are looking for a Director of Software Development to lead the engineering function. You will manage a team that includes software engineers and architects. The architects own technical design and system architecture; your job is to lead them well, not do their job for them. You will set delivery standards, drive engineering culture, and translate business objectives into team priorities.

This is also a role for someone who takes AI adoption seriously. We expect the Director of Software Development to operate at the leading edge of how AI tools are used in engineering, not as a novelty, but as a disciplined shift in how the team works. That means operating at the Intent Engineering and Delegation Model levels of AI-assisted development: communicating goals and constraints to AI systems at a high level of abstraction, defining outcomes and acceptance criteria for AI-executed tasks, and holding the team to the same standard.

What You'll Do

• Lead, develop, and retain a team of software engineers and architects; set clear expectations around performance, delivery, and professional growth
• Manage architects effectively: ensure architecture decisions are grounded in business context, properly documented, and executed with engineering discipline, without substituting your own judgment for theirs
• Partner with the CTO on engineering direction, organizational design, and build vs. buy decisions
• Set and enforce team-wide standards for code quality, testing, code review, branching, incident response, and release practices
• Drive AI adoption across the engineering team with rigor: establish a team operating model at the Intent Engineering and Delegation Model levels, engineers communicate goals and constraints to AI systems at a high level of abstraction, define outcomes and acceptance criteria for AI-executed tasks, and evaluate results rather than generating code line by line
• Recruit engineering talent at multiple levels; build a team culture where accountability and growth are not mutually exclusive

Discovery & Execution

• Own the software development roadmap; align delivery to product commitments, operational needs, and lending partner integrations
• Drive reliable, on-schedule delivery of production software with the operational rigor appropriate for a high-volume financial services platform
• Maintain technical depth sufficient to assess architecture decisions, conduct meaningful code reviews, and identify quality problems, without being the person responsible for creating or owning the architecture
• Apply AI tooling at the Delegation Model level in your own workflow: define outcomes and acceptance criteria for AI-executed tasks, monitor execution, and review results; model this approach explicitly for the team
• Identify and resolve delivery bottlenecks; manage dependencies across product, DevOps, data, and operations

Growth & Optimization

• Build a team-wide practice of AI adoption at the Intent Engineering level: engineers articulate goals, constraints, and context clearly enough for AI systems to reason about full problems and produce substantial, correct output, shifting the skill floor from writing syntax to specifying intent
• Track engineering velocity, code quality, and system reliability with real metrics; act on what the data shows
• Establish and evolve career frameworks for engineers at all levels; create legible paths from junior to senior and from IC to lead
• Drive continuous improvement in testing discipline, deployment frequency, and incident recovery time
• Identify technical debt that affects delivery risk or system reliability and make the case for addressing it with concrete tradeoffs

Partnership & Compliance

• Work closely with the Directors of Product, IT/InfoSec, DevOps, AI/Data and Support to ensure engineering delivery connects to company-wide priorities
• Communicate clearly with executive stakeholders on delivery status, risks, and tradeoffs, without hedging or obscuring problems
• Enforce compliance with SOC 2, PCI DSS, and data handling requirements applicable to a financial services platform processing borrower PII and lender data
• Participate in procurement, vendor evaluation, and platform decisions that affect the engineering stack
• Provide accurate, honest delivery estimates in planning cycles; flag risk early rather than absorbing it silently

Required Skills & Experience

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years managing engineering teams at the team-lead or director level
• Demonstrated experience managing architects or senior technical ICs: you know the difference between managing an architect's delivery and doing their architecture work yourself
• Strong technical background in enterprise backend development (Java/Spring Boot, C#/.NET, or comparable stack); able to assess architecture decisions and identify quality problems without being the architect
• Working knowledge of React or a comparable modern frontend framework
• AWS proficiency across core services (EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, ECS/EKS, or equivalent); able to make and defend infrastructure decisions in a cloud-native environment
• Demonstrated track record of shipping production software reliably, on schedule, with the operational rigor expected in a regulated financial services environment
• Active, working knowledge of AI coding tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent); operates at the Intent Engineering level, communicating goals and constraints at a high level of abstraction rather than generating code line by line
• Ability to define AI task delegation: write clear outcome definitions and acceptance criteria for AI-executed tasks, evaluate results, and hold engineers to the same discipline
• Experience managing cross-functional delivery with dependencies on product, design, and operations
• Familiarity with SOC 2, PCI DSS, or other compliance frameworks relevant to financial services
• Clear, direct written and verbal communication; this role has consistent CTO and executive-level exposure

Nice to Have

• Experience with auto lending, auto refinancing, or consumer credit products.
• Familiarity with loan origination systems (LOS), credit decisioning, or lending infrastructure.
• Technical fluency with APIs, integrations, or platform-based products.
• Experience working with external partners or B2B clients in a product-led organization.

Base Salary: $185,000 - $220,000 annually, commensurate with experience

Bonus: Performance-based incentives tied to company and individual goals

Benefits: Comprehensive benefits including health, dental, vision, life insurance, 401(k), PTO, career development opportunities, and the chance to join Denver's Best Place to Work (2024 & 2025) with a dynamic culture focused on internal promotion and employee growth.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Yield Solutions Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants.