Key skills
Technology StrategySoftware DevelopmentGlobal Workforce LeadershipAWSCloud-native DevelopmentKubernetesDockerMicroservicesInfrastructure as CodeTerraformAWS CDKArtificial IntelligenceMachine LearningLanguage ModelsReasoning ModelsMultimodal ModelsPrompt EngineeringContext EngineeringAgent FrameworksRetrieval-Augmented GenerationVector DatabasesGenerative AIOpenAIHugging FaceLangChainMonolithic Architecture ModernizationHybrid Cloud StrategiesAPI DevelopmentCI/CD PipelinesAutomated Testing FrameworksAgile MethodologiesScrumKanbanSAFeCustomer-centric Product ModelsAIGenAIRAGCloudFormationEC2LambdaS3RDSAgileSDLCCI/CDLeadershipCommunication
About this role
Cengage is a global education technology company dedicated to empowering learners through innovative digital products and services. As a Director of Software Engineering, you will lead the development of market-leading platforms and products, guiding teams to deliver digital content that enhances learning outcomes while driving technological innovation.
Responsibilities:
- Work with multiple leaders, including the Digital leadership team and business partners, to craft a convincing technical strategy and roadmap(s) to achieve business unit goals
- Collaborate across functions to align on priorities for scaling and building our products globally
- Identify scalable products and deliver them to support our global customer base. You will incorporate new technologies and industry trends into the outcomes
- Partner with multi-functional leaders, through POM, to standardize and improve development, testing, and release processes, ensuring timely delivery of quality products
- Drive product and technology strategy reviews with Product Leaders and senior collaborators, leading strategic technological discussions
- Lead high-performing engineering teams, developing a pipeline of high-caliber talent and encouraging leaders to achieve priorities
- Cultivate a high-performance, transparent environment passionate about accountability and results
- Reinvent and optimize the SDLC using modern frameworks, principles, automation, and generative AI
- Champion a culture of continuous learning and professional development, offering team members opportunities to grow
Requirements:
- 5+ years of leadership experience in developing technology strategies and driving innovation
- 10+ years of progressive software development experience
- Experience leading a global workforce of employees and contractors across different time zones
- Expertise in AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, CloudFormation), cloud-native development (Kubernetes, Docker, microservices), and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, AWS CDK)
- Solid understanding of AI concepts, technologies and methods, including machine learning, Language, Reasoning & multimodal models, prompt & context engineering, developing and using skills & agent frameworks, RAG, and vector databases
- Hands-on experience integrating or experimenting with commercial and open-source GenAI technologies and toolkits (e.g., coding assistants, OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangChain)
- Strong experience in modernizing monolithic architectures, implementing hybrid cloud strategies, and crafting APIs to bridge legacy systems with cloud-native platforms
- Proven ability to compose and build scalable, secure, high-availability enterprise systems using CI/CD pipelines and automated testing frameworks
- Skilled in agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and customer-centric product models to drive iterative development and rapid time-to-market
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent combination of education and recent, relevant work experience