Director of Software Engineering

SANS Institute is an information security training and certification organization. The Director of Software Engineering will provide senior technical and organizational leadership for the Cloud Platform Engineering organization and serve as engineering executive for the CORE enrollment and entitlement modernization program. The role leads engineering teams, owns shared platforms and standards, and drives secure, scalable systems modernization and cross-functional coordination.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, manage, and mentor individual contributors and engineering teams through managers and leads
• Own engineering standards and best practices CI/CD, code quality, secure development and facilitate architecture governance across teams
• Plan and balance engineering capacity against shifting business priorities, communicating trade-offs to stakeholders
• Lead strategic modernization programs end to end: architecture, cross-team commitments, delivery planning, and executive reporting
• Direct modernization of core product platforms enrollment, entitlement, identity, and product services including integration with enterprise systems and retirement of legacy tooling
• Measure engineering effectiveness and drive continuous improvement across teams
• Champion incident management discipline and publish regular engineering communications to stakeholders
• Other duties as assigned

Requirements:

• BS or MS in Computer Science, related technical field, or equivalent industry experience
• At least 10 years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams and 3+ years managing through engineering managers or leads
• Demonstrated success leading a large, multi-team modernization or systems-integration program from design through delivery
• Strong technical acumen with prior hands-on development experience and the ability to guide architectural decisions across services, integrations, and data flows
• Experience with modern AI development techniques and best practices
• Experience with enterprise business systems and integrations (e.g., Salesforce/Service Cloud, identity providers, payment/order management)
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and DevOps practices, including AWS, CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and infrastructure as code
• Experience managing vendor relationships, software procurement, licensing, and budgets
• Experience with Agile, SDLC, and modern development standards and best practices
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including executive-level reporting and cross-functional coordination
• Unrestricted authorization to work in the USA; visa sponsorship is not available
• Interest in a security-first mindset and secure coding practices
• Ability and passion for developing both individuals and teams
• Experience in education technology, training delivery platforms, or certification systems
• Experience facilitating architecture governance (architecture councils, RFC processes, engineering standards)
• Familiarity with identity and access management platforms (PingIdentity, Entra ID) and entitlement modeling
• Experience integrating AI-assisted development tooling and governing its safe, cost-effective adoption