Director, Software Engineering

Job Summary: Responsible for providing strategic and organizational leadership for multiple software engineering teams delivering enterprise applications in support of Penn Mutual’s business objectives. Acts as a senior technology leader accountable for outcomes across several development teams. Partners with business and technology leaders to set direction, establish standards, and ensure scalable, secure, and reliable software solutions. Focuses on organizational effectiveness, delivery excellence, and long-term technology strategy. 

Responsibilities: 

• Leadership: Provide strategic leadership and direction across multiple application development teams through engineering managers, ensuring alignment with enterprise goals and technology strategy while fostering an environment of trust, accountability, and professional growth. 

• Team Management: Lead and develop engineering managers; set clear expectations, coach leadership capability, and ensure teams are appropriately staffed, engaged, and productive. 

• Project Management: Oversee a portfolio of software initiatives across teams, ensuring consistent execution, prioritization, and delivery outcomes aligned to business objectives. 

• Technology Strategy: Define and evolve application development strategy, platforms, and architectural direction in partnership with enterprise architecture and IT leadership. 

• Collaboration: Partner with product, business, IT operations, security, and architecture leaders to align roadmaps, manage dependencies, and deliver business value. 

• Quality Assurance: Establish and govern standards, best practices, and quality frameworks to ensure solutions are secure, scalable, reliable, and maintainable across teams. 

• Resource Allocation: Manage resource allocation, including budgeting and staffing to optimize delivery across multiple teams and initiatives. 

• Risk Management: Proactively identify and manage delivery, technology, and organizational risks across the portfolio; ensure mitigation strategies are in place and communicated. 

• Continuous Improvement: Drive continuous improvement in engineering practices, delivery predictability, and organizational maturity; foster a culture of accountability, learning, and innovation. 

• Compliance: Ensure teams adhere to regulatory, security, and risk management requirements, including data privacy and cybersecurity standards. 

• Change Management: Oversee adherence to change management processes, ensuring organizational readiness and controlled implementation of application changes. 

Minimum Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the minimum knowledge, skill, and ability required. 

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related discipline. 

• 15+ years of experience in software engineering with progressive leadership responsibility, including managing managers and multiple delivery teams. 

• Demonstrated experience leading largescale application portfolios and complex, crossfunctional initiatives using modern technologies such as Java, microservices architecture, and API-based integrations. 

• Strong understanding of modern application platforms, APIs, integration patterns, and governance models, with the ability to guide architectural decisions at a strategic level. 

• Strong understanding of software design principles, coding standards, and engineering best practices sufficient to review, challenge, and guide technical decisions made by teams. 

• Proven ability to manage competing priorities, budgets, and resources across multiple teams and initiatives. 

• Excellent organizational, communication, and executivelevel stakeholder management skills. 

Preferred: 

• Experience overseeing teams building cloudnative, microservicesbased systems with welldefined API contracts and automated quality controls. 

• Strong background in Agile at scale, organizational transformation, and continuous delivery models. 

• Experience partnering with enterprise architecture, security, and operations teams. 

Competencies: 

• Customer Service: Demonstrates a strong commitment to delivering value to internal customers through reliable, highquality software solutions. 

• Attention to Detail: Maintains oversight of complex initiatives while ensuring standards, governance, and quality expectations are met. 

• Analytical Skills: Evaluates portfoliolevel data, trends, and risks to guide decisionmaking and strategic planning. 

• Communications: Communicates clearly and effectively with executives, peers, managers, and teams; ensures transparency and alignment. 

• Managing People: Develops leaders, holds managers accountable, and builds highperforming, scalable engineering organizations. 

• Problem Solving: Addresses organizational, delivery, and technical challenges with a pragmatic, outcomesfocused approach. 

• Relationship Management: Builds strong partnerships across business and technology functions. 

• Teamwork: Fosters collaboration, shared ownership, and alignment across teams and disciplines.