Vice President of Research & Development

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Vice President of Research & Development based in United States. This executive role leads research and development across a multi-product software portfolio, with a strong focus on AI-driven engineering transformation. You will define the technical roadmap, modernize development practices, and accelerate delivery through practical adoption of AI and agentic workflows. The position combines strategic technology leadership with accountability for releases, quality, security, financial performance, and organizational development. You will guide engineering leaders, allocate resources across products, and turn emerging technology into measurable customer and business value. A major focus will be building safe, governed AI-enabled delivery practices while modernizing legacy platforms and supporting established customer environments. You will work closely with Product, Operations, Support, Sales, Finance, customers, partners, and executive leadership to align technology decisions with business priorities. Success in this role is measured through delivery predictability, product quality, AI maturity, financial discipline, organizational health, and tangible customer outcomes. Accountabilities: - Lead the R&D strategy and establish a multi-year technical roadmap across the Corrections and Law Enforcement product portfolio. - Drive the adoption of AI development tools and agentic, human-on-the-loop engineering practices across development teams. - Establish AI delivery governance, including review gates, validation processes, security reviews of AI-generated code, and recurring measurement of AI maturity and business outcomes. - Research and evaluate emerging AI tools, models, workflows, and development practices, integrating proven approaches into standard engineering processes. - Rebuild roadmap assumptions around AI-enabled delivery acceleration and redirect recovered engineering capacity toward high-value customer problems and opportunities.

- Determine where AI should be embedded directly into customer-facing products and where it can provide a faster path to customer outcomes and revenue opportunities. - Own technology standards, architectural direction, technical documentation, and development practices across the portfolio. - Evaluate build, buy, consolidation, and modernization opportunities, providing data-backed recommendations to executive leadership. - Monitor industry trends, competitive capabilities, and emerging technologies relevant to law enforcement, corrections, justice, and enterprise software. - Own release commitments across development teams, including scope, sequencing, timelines, status reporting, risks, blockers, and dependencies. - Standardize development processes, tooling, and engineering metrics across independently operating organizations. - Establish and enforce quality standards covering code review, automated testing, defect thresholds, release readiness, and AI-generated code. - Maintain strong product and platform security practices and ensure development activities meet applicable regulatory, contractual, and industry requirements. - Partner with Support Services to connect customer issues and escalations with engineering priorities. - Lead, mentor, and develop engineering managers and directors, establishing clear goals, performance expectations, succession plans, and talent strategies. - Recruit and retain engineering talent while building depth across critical technical roles. - Structure engineering capacity across onshore, offshore, and contract resources based on evolving business and delivery needs. - Own the R&D budget, including headcount planning, capitalization, AI tooling investments, and vendor commitments. - Contribute R&D inputs to monthly forecasting and quarterly executive reporting, including explanations for budget variances.