Vice President, Software Engineering and Development

Ascensus is the leading independent technology and service platform powering savings plans across America, providing products and expertise that help nearly 16 million people save for a better today and tomorrow.

Section 1: Position Summary

 The Vice President of Software Engineering and Development leads high-performing teams across engineering, QA, DevOps, Application Support, and data architecture for the assigned line of business. This role partners closely with product, technology, and business leaders to deliver scalable, secure, and high-quality software solutions. The VP drives operational efficiency through lean practices, automation, and data-driven metrics, and operationalizes AI by establishing governance, delivery patterns, and platform capabilities that move pilots into production with measurable business outcomes. This role influences enterprise technology strategy and fosters alignment across IT to deliver scalable, secure, and innovative solutions. This position reports to the SVP of Software Engineering and Development for the assigned line of business.

Section 2: Job Functions, Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership and Talent Development

• Attract, develop, and retain diverse, high-performing engineering, QA, DevOps, data, and architecture teams.
• Set clear goals and succession plans, and foster accountability, learning, and psychological safety.
• Model leadership behaviors that elevate engagement, inclusion, and performance.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning and inclusive leadership across all levels.

Operational Excellence and Efficiency 

• Improve time to value using lean value-stream practices and a standard metric set: throughput, cycle time, predictability, change failure rate, lead time for changes, and mean time to restore.
• Apply SRE practices for reliability, observability, incident response, and post-incident learning.
• Standardize tools and automation to reduce toil and raise developer productivity, with FinOps to optimize run costs and unit economics.
• Champion quality assurance practices to ensure software products meet rigorous standards and deliver excellent client experiences.
• Strengthen onboarding processes for new associates and consultants, ensuring rapid ramp-up through structured training, documentation, and mentorship.
• Promote continuous learning and upskilling through targeted enablement programs aligned with evolving technology and business needs.

Software Delivery and Agile Execution

• Ensure consistent agile execution with clear sprint and release commitments across multiple teams.
• Institutionalize feedback loops and retrospectives that inform capacity planning and roadmaps.
• Advance engineering excellence including test automation, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and quality engineering.
• Promote a metrics-driven culture that uses data to guide roadmap sequencing, capacity planning, and risk management.
• Lead Developer Experience (DevEx) across the technology organization, championing AI‑first development to significantly improve engineering efficiency, throughput, and developer productivity.what 

Innovation and Emerging Technology

• Translate prioritized business problems into AI roadmaps with defined success metrics and value targets.
• Govern data privacy, responsible AI, and model risk in partnership with Risk, Security, and Compliance.
• Scale repeatable AI patterns into production and ensure alignment with business outcomes and compliance standards.
• Foster a culture of experimentation and innovation across teams.
• Evaluate and pilot new AI capabilities, tools, frameworks, and platforms that accelerate delivery, improve resilience, or unlock new business value.
• Monitor emerging technologies and trends to identify opportunities for strategic adoption and competitive advantage.

Platform and Architecture Stewardship

• Guide development of scalable, maintainable platforms aligned to enterprise architecture.
• Drive reuse through standards and shared components to reduce complexity and cost.
• Lead ongoing platform transformation initiatives that support long-term scalability and resilience.

Risk, Security, and Compliance

• Ensure compliance with SOC-aligned controls and internal governance standards.
• Embed secure development lifecycle practices with clear vulnerability remediation SLAs.
• Protect confidential data with proper handling to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, and produce audit-ready evidence.
• Collaborate with Security and Risk teams to proactively identify and mitigate threats across the software lifecycle.

Financial and Vendor Management

• Own budget planning and forecasting, and manage capacity to plan.
• Manage vendor performance and contracts to outcomes, and make sound build versus buy decisions.
• Present portfolio health and value delivery to senior stakeholders with clear, actionable insights.
• Align financial decisions with long-term technology strategy and operational efficiency goals.

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Client Support

• Align with Product on outcome-based roadmaps and prioritization.
• Support RFPs and key client engagements as the primary IT contributor .
• Share best practices and drive alignment across IT.
• Represent technology leadership in client-facing discussions to reinforce trust and transparency.

General

• Responsible for protecting, securing, and proper handling of all confidential data held by Ascensus to ensure against unauthorized access, improper transmission, and/or unapproved disclosure of information that could result in harm to Ascensus or our clients.
• At Ascensus we are guided by our Core Values of People Matter, Quality First and Integrity Always®. They inspire us every day to prioritize an environment of respect for those we serve and one another and should be visible in your actions on a day-to-day.

Supervision  

• Hire, coach, and develop associates and leaders with clear growth plans.
• Provide ongoing feedback and ensure succession coverage for critical roles.
• Model leadership behaviors that reflect Ascensus Core Values and foster an inclusive, high-performance culture.
• Ensure team structure supports scalability, agility, and cross-functional collaboration.

Section 3:  Experience, Skills, Knowledge Requirements

• 10+ years in software engineering with 5+ years leading multi-team organizations.
• Proven success leading distributed teams at scale.
• Expertise in agile delivery, engineering metrics, and continuous improvement.
• Hands-on understanding of CI/CD, test automation, infrastructure as code, and quality assurance practices.
• Experience operationalizing AI and data-driven engineering practices in production.
• Familiarity with SRE and FinOps practices.
• Experience leading platform upgrade or platform migration initiatives.
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence enterprise-level technology decisions and build consensus across diverse stakeholders.
• Proficiency in modern frameworks and at least one major language such as C# or Java.

The national average salary range for this role is $230-280k in base pay, exclusive of any bonuses and benefits. This base salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salary offered will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location, experience, performance, and internal pay alignment. We do not anticipate that candidates hired will begin at the top of the range however, from time to time, it may occur on a case-by-case basis.  Other rewards and benefits may include: 401(k) match, Medical, Dental, Vision, Paid-Time-Off, etc.  For more information, please visit careers.ascensus.com/#Benefits. 

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