Director, Software Development, J2EE, SaaS

The Director of Software Development reports to the VP of Technology and will lead the team responsible for the development of technology solutions that constitute the company's core J2EE technology on a SaaS platform. The Director will work across many teams within the company as well as manage an offshore vendor to review design and architecture as well as ensure quality and on-time delivery of releases. Will manage the entire development lifecycle from Business Analysis through QA Testing.

Responsibilities

• Define, design and implement cutting-edge software and modify existing software to add features, specify product internal/external interfaces, contribute innovative ideas for components and system architecture.
• Contribute to the design, implementation and deployment of high performance services and web applications.
• Manage offshore vendor and facilitate daily development calls with the offshore software vendor to cover both new development as well as maintenance activities.
• Work with Product Management and Account Management to diagnose and resolve production problems in client environments
• Work with business teams to review business requirements, minimize ambiguity and incomplete requirements, identify opportunities for engaging business review throughout the solution development and provide technical leadership and advice as needed
• Ensure design and code reviews, analysis of code components and code coverage of Unit test cases
• Responsible for the adoption of software architecture best practices like code reusability, pattern oriented architecture, coding standards, modularization of code, aspect oriented programming etc within the technology team
• Provide senior technical leadership and mentoring to all delivery team resources
• Manage risks, develop release plans, identify milestones and foster a commitment to delivery within the development team
• Conduct formal and informal performance reviews for continued growth of direct reports
• Provide senior management with periodic updates on progress, issues and concerns in a timely manner
• Responsible for the adoption and implementation of company's software development methodology by adopting best practices from current methodologies like RUP, Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development and Agile Model Driven Development
• Initiate informal reviews of ideas and technical objectives within and across business units.
• Interface cross-functionally and lead team collaboration extending beyond work group.
• Participate in the development of cost benefit analyses, associated budgets and tracking of actual costs spent vs. budget and regularly reporting on status to management.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Business Management or related discipline or equivalent work experience.
• Combined 8 + years demonstrated development experience with at least 5+ years in J2EE application development, preferably in a managed service or SaaS environment.
• Min 3 years proven management experience leading both on-shore and offshore teams.
• Very high technical competence, track record of strong coding and individual technical accomplishments
• Strong business acumen with an ability to quickly pick-up new business domain knowledge to confidently deliver appropriate technical solutions.
• Hands on knowledge of SOA and Web Services design patterns and practices
• Hands on implementation experience with J2EE technologies like Java Servlets, POJO, EJB 3.0, JMS, XML, SOAP, WSDL, JSP etc
• Excellent knowledge of relational database technologies with advanced capabilities in at least one industry grade relation database systems - Oracle, SQL Server
• Demonstrated expertise in implementing solutions on J2EE application servers like Websphere, BEA Weblogic and Open Source alternatives like JBoss
• Excellent knowledge/experience with Open Source technologies and frameworks like Hibernate and Spring
• Experience with Open Source testing frameworks like JUnit and JMeter.
• Experience managing offshore vendors and teams
• Strong innovator who can continue to mature processes and technologies within the constraints of an early stage company
• A team player - experience working with multiple teams
• Excellent strengths in time management and organization skills with an aptitude toward creative problem solving.
• Proven self-starter and ability to meet tight deadlines.
• Track record of managing multiple complex tasks
• Ability to be productive and effective within a matrix organization.
• Experience defining, implementing and managing organizational processes
• Excellent communicator - verbal and written skills required