Director, Instrumentation Software Engineering

US-CA-Santa ClaraSenior$210,528 - $328,95010+ years

Job Description

You will lead a global team in a software engineering organization through subordinate managers and technical leads. Accountable for end-to-end delivery, technical direction, and people leadership across platform, data, and services engineering teams that span multiple locations and time zones and combine full-time engineers with contractor capacity. The single accountable engineering leader for the domains in scope — responsible for delivery outcomes, architectural coherence, organizational health, and talent growth.

Key responsibilities

Own end-to-end delivery across multiple software engineering teams spanning platform, data, and services engineering.
Lead through subordinate people managers and technical leads — leading leaders, not only individual contributors.
Establish and sustain effective leadership presence across geographically distributed, multi-time-zone teams.
Set technical and architectural direction; ensure cross-team architectural coherence and consistent engineering standards.
Own vendor / managed-services relationships and plan contractor capacity against roadmap demand.
Hire, develop, and grow the organization; convert interim and contractor capacity into durable roles where appropriate.
Partner with peer engineering, product, and compliance functions on shared platform and data contracts.
Champion modernization — legacy monolith to microservices, and workstation-based enterprise applications to containerized client-server web applications — and drive adoption of agentic-AI tooling across development and test workflows.

Qualifications

Required qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree or equivalent plus directly relevant experience.
10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years leading managers and technical leads (leading leaders, not only individual contributors).
Proven delivery of data-platform, distributed-systems, or services software at scale on a modern cloud-native stack (Kubernetes, Go and/or .NET, event-driven messaging, observability).
Demonstrated success leading geographically distributed teams across multiple time zones, including establishing leadership presence in a remote location.
Track record of hiring and building engineering teams and of managing vendor / managed-services capacity.
Strong cross-functional and executive stakeholder leadership; clear written communication (roadmaps, decision records).

Preferred qualifications

Background in scientific instrumentation, laboratory informatics, or other regulated enterprise software domains.
Data-platform / lakehouse experience, including metadata, lineage, and governance.
Familiarity with hybrid cloud, on-premises, and edge deployment topologies.
3+ years applying AI/ML in production — including hands-on use and deployment of agentic AI across the software development and test lifecycle (AI-assisted coding, automated test generation, agentic workflows).
Deep container-based orchestration expertise (Kubernetes): service deployment, scaling, and model serving / tuning.
Proven delivery in rapid release cycles within a highly regulated environment (21 CFR Part 11, GAMP 5, ALCOA+).
Led the transformation of a legacy monolithic codebase into a microservices architecture — specifically migrating workstation-based enterprise applications to containerized client-server web applications.

Additional Details

This job has a full time weekly schedule. Applications for this job will be accepted until at least June 24, 2026 or until the job is no longer posted.

The full-time equivalent pay range for this position is $210,528.00 - $328,950.00/yr plus eligibility for bonus, stock and benefits. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. During the hiring process, a recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for a preferred location. Pay and benefit information by country are available at: https://careers.agilent.com/locations

Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an Equal Employment Opportunity and merit-based employer that values individuals of all backgrounds at all levels. All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, pregnancy, race, religion or religious creed, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, registered domestic partner status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, local law, ordinance, or regulation and will not be discriminated against on these bases. Agilent Technologies, Inc., is committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive in the workplace where everyone is welcome, and strives to support candidates with disabilities. If you have a disability and need assistance with any part of the application or interview process or have questions about workplace accessibility, please email job_posting@agilent.com or contact +1-262-754-5030. For more information about equal employment opportunity protections, please visit www.agilent.com/en/accessibility.