Director, Application Delivery & QA (Remote)

Do you have a passion for children and education? Would you like to positively impact families in need of help? We want to speak with you!

Step Up For Students empowers families to pursue and engage in the most appropriate learning options for their children.


Step Up For Students empowers families to pursue the most appropriate learning options for their children. We unite communities to provide scholarships that open doors to a stronger future. With this support, students can choose the right learning environment and access resources to reach their full potential.

Our culture is rooted in two core values:
• Everyone is an asset
• Every event is an improvement opportunity

These values guide how we work together and continuously improve. We expect every team member to bring these principles to life in their daily work.

The Director of Application Delivery & QA is responsible for leading the strategy, architecture, development, delivery, and quality assurance of all software development initiatives across SUFS. This highly visible leadership role requires a forward-thinking technology leader who can successfully align business objectives with technical solutions while driving innovation, operational excellence, and organizational growth.

The ideal candidate combines strategic vision with hands-on execution, bringing deep software development expertise and a proven ability to lead high-performing technical teams. This leader will play a critical role in advancing the organization's application modernization roadmap, improving development and QA processes, and establishing a best-in-class software engineering culture.

Reporting directly to the CIO, the Director will balance long-term technology strategy with day-to-day delivery excellence. They will partner closely with business and technology stakeholders to ensure the successful design, development, testing, and deployment of scalable, high-quality solutions that enhance both customer and employee experiences.

Location: Remote (United States)

Key Responsibilities:
• Provide leadership, management and technical vision to entire Software Development team that consists of Software Development Managers, QA Manager, Software Developers and Quality Assurance Analysts made up of in-house and third-party resources.
• Builds technical roadmaps of the organization's software solutions that include technology, platform, frameworks, and other SOA based services.
• Works with Sr. Director of Enterprise Standards & Systems Architecture, Director of Data Strategy, Sr. Manager of Product Management and Sr. Manager of PM to ensure technical debt and modernization efforts are presented and prioritized with the senior technology and business leaders.
• Defines the software development and quality assurance go-forward strategy that includes supported programming languages, tools, robust industry best-practice processes, etc.
• Defines and monitors key performance indicators and metrics to measure the success of the team, software performance and health, etc.
• Develops work standards and processes to reduce implementation time and improve quality.
• Instills a culture of continuous improvement and learning and development.
• Leads the implementation of our DevSecOps, CI/CD, and TDD strategies;
• Defines and implements organization's technical documentation strategy of software solutions.
• Builds and manages relationships with 3rd party vendors for outsourced development resources.
• When needed, facilitate Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions with cross functional team of Engineers, Analysts, Product Owner, other business and technical stakeholders.
• Work with teams on removing technical obstacles via hand-on and lead-by-example engagement.
• Reports on the progress of our modernization efforts and team development.
• Makes presentations to senior leaders within the organization.
• Work and communicates with cross functional teams.
• Provides direct professional development.
• Manage Software Development and Quality Assurance budgets.
• Ability to absorb new information very quickly and provide architectural/best-practice guidance.
• Ability to provide hands-on and lead-by-example mentoring to rest of team.
• Demonstrate leadership ability to back decisions with research and the "why," and articulate several options, the pros and cons for each, and a recommendation.

Qualifications:
• Demonstrated success and a proven track record in professional/life experience in specific job functions, projects, or industries. Military service can substitute for professional experience and/or formal education requirements.
• Minimum ten years of progressive software engineering and technology management experience with a m