Key skills
Technology StrategySoftware DevelopmentAWSCloud-native DevelopmentKubernetesDockerMicroservicesInfrastructure as CodeTerraformAWS CDKArtificial IntelligenceMachine LearningLanguage ModelsReasoning ModelsMultimodal ModelsPrompt EngineeringContext EngineeringAgent FrameworksRetrieval-Augmented GenerationVector DatabasesGenerative AIGenAI TechnologiesOpenAIHugging FaceLangChainMonolithic Architecture ModernizationHybrid Cloud StrategiesAPI DevelopmentScalable Enterprise SystemsSecure SystemsHigh-Availability SystemsCI/CD PipelinesAutomated Testing FrameworksAgile MethodologiesScrumKanbanSAFeCustomer-Centric Product ModelsAIGenAIRAGCloudFormationEC2LambdaS3RDSAgileSDLCCI/CDLeadershipCommunication
About this role
Cengage is a global education technology company dedicated to helping students discover the power and joy of learning. As a Director of Software Engineering, you will lead the development of innovative platforms and products, guiding teams to deliver trusted digital content that enhances learning outcomes while collaborating with product and design teams to drive customer-focused improvements.
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