Director, Software Engineering & Architecture

Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Focus on the Family has nearly 700 employees who work to achieve the mission of enriching the lives of families, engaging the culture, advocating for life and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The work is meaningful, the culture is rewarding, and the purpose is eternal.


The Director, Software Engineering & Architecture position exists to coach and provide strategic vision and direction to software engineers, site reliability engineers, and the ministry’s overall software architecture, ensuring effective development for and sustainability of the ministry’s digital products and enterprise applications. This role emphasizes leadership in software architecture—particularly with Salesforce and ERP applications—while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and empowerment in software and site reliability engineering. The position shares responsibility for selecting, optimizing, implementing, and supporting digital tools and platforms critical to organizational success.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:
Leadership, Vision & Strategy:
• Develops and executes a strategic vision for software engineering and architecture
• Engages senior leadership, external vendors, and business partners to align technical strategies with ministry objectives
• Leads the architectural design, roadmap, and implementation of scalable, secure, and reliable enterprise applications
• Ensures seamless integration of third-party and in-house applications, maintaining data consistency and system interoperability
• Oversees architectural and engineering standards and governance frameworks while ensuring comprehensive documentation of architecture, runbooks, and key decisions for alignment and long-term knowledge retention
• Oversees implementation of ministry security strategies for enterprise applications to mitigate risks and ensure compliance with data protection standards
• Develops strategies to manage technical debt and ensure long-term system health
• Guides adoption of modern technologies, including cloud solutions, DevOps practices, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines, to enhance efficiency and innovation
• Drives innovation and modernization initiatives to position the ministry as a leader in digital transformation and technology adoption
• Serves as a key leader within the department, supporting and collaborating with peers as needed
Collaboration & Coaching:
• Leads a team of 10+ Software Engineers and Site Reliability Engineers, fostering a culture of empowerment, collaboration, and innovation
• Cultivates a pipeline of future leaders by fostering skill development and preparing direct reports for increased responsibility
• Partners with Digital Solutions leadership, teams, and business partners to provide high-level effort estimates, timelines, and priorities for key projects
Operational Excellence:
• Optimizes development processes, quality assurance, and operational monitoring with a focus on automation, scalability, and continuous improvement
• Oversees robust and proactive monitoring, alerting, and after-hours support processes to ensure system performance and reliability
• Leads post-incident reviews to drive root cause analysis, implement actionable postmortems, and ensure continuous improvement
• Champions Agile mindset and methodologies within software and site reliability engineering to enhance delivery and responsiveness
• Monitors emerging technologies, industry trends, and regulatory requirements, proposing solutions to address organizational needs
• Collaborates with other department leadership to ensure development operations fit into larger operational excellence strategies and efforts
Metrics & Reporting:
• Defines, tracks, and reports key performance metrics—e.g., deployment frequency, change lead time, and Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR)—to measure success and drive continuous improvement
• Contributes to the development and reporting of the department’s trimester scorecard
• Leverages data insights to inform strategic decisions and optimize team performance
Other Duties/Responsibilities:
• May provide after-hours and weekend support as necessary
• Participates in on-going training opportunities
• Performs other duties as assigned
Managerial Breadth/Scope of Job:
• Directly supervises ~10 direct reports, including software engineers, site reliability engineers, and interns
• Manages relationships with vendor and consultants for development projects and architectural initiatives
Working Environment/Physical Requirements:
• Office environment with frequent computer use and occasional travel, domestic or international
JOB QUALIFICATIONS/REQUIREMENTS
Character/Spiritual:
Exempli