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Director, Software Development

New Zealand

Company Overview:

Everything we do is for educators. We’re partnering with them to advance a bold vision for education that boosts district performance and student success. At Follett Software, we empower educators across roles with technology that streamlines processes and manages information and resources to improve their schools, increase student success, and drive the future of education. We believe that by empowering educators to amplify their impact on students’ lives, we can change the world. Our goal and mission is to drive the future of education. We are inspired by educators to deliver transformative technology. Our innovative, connected solutions simplify challenges and offer a seamless and intuitive experience.

Position Overview: 

We are seeking a Director of Software Development to lead the engineering organisation for our AccessIt product. In this role, you will head a team of skilled software engineers (Java backend, SQL Server database, and modern web front-end technologies) to deliver a high-quality, cloud-based product. You will drive technical strategy and architectural modernisation while ensuring that our development efforts remain extremely customer-focused and outcome-driven. The ideal candidate is a pragmatic and collaborative leader who can balance hands-on technical guidance with strategic vision, fostering a culture of innovation, agility, and continuous improvement in line with modern engineering best practices. This is a high-impact leadership position with the opportunity to shape the future of our platform and deliver real value to customers on an iterative, continuous basis. 

This is a in office role located in Wellington, New Zealand

Key Responsibilities:

  • Technical Leadership & Strategy: Provide technical direction and strategic vision for the engineering team, ensuring alignment of software architecture with business goals and customer needs. Lead the planning, design, and delivery of our SaaS applications across front-end and back-end teams, upholding high standards of quality, performance, and security. 
  • Architectural Modernization: Drive the iterative modernisation of our platform’s architecture. Champion and implement modern architectural patterns (e.g. microservices, event-driven systems) to progressively transform legacy modules into scalable, cloud-native services. Employ iterative modernization techniques such as the “strangler” pattern to replace legacy components incrementally while minimizing risk. Ensure the system evolves with a focus on maintainability and extensibility for future growth. 
  • Product Delivery & Execution: Oversee the full software development lifecycle and ensure on-time delivery of features. Promote modern engineering practices – Agile/Scrum methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, and test automation – to enable rapid, frequent releases of value to customers. Own the throughput and stability of product delivery, continuously improving development processes and removing impediments. 
  • Team Leadership & Development: Manage, mentor, and inspire a high-performing engineering team. Build an environment of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. Provide coaching and professional development for engineers and team leads and cultivate new leaders within the team. Recruit and retain top talent, fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where individuals thrive and contribute fully. 
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Product Management, Design, QA, DevOps and other departments to ensure engineering efforts are well-coordinated and aligned with company objectives. Act as a key collaborator in product roadmap planning, translating business requirements into technical execution plans. Partner with Customer Success and occasionally engage with clients to understand user feedback and ensure our solutions continuously improve the customer experience. 
  • Customer Focus & Quality: Instill a customer-first mindset in the engineering organization. Champion initiatives that improve user experience, reliability, and performance of the product. Act as the escalation point for critical customer-facing issues – working to quickly troubleshoot and resolve production problems to maintain high customer satisfaction. Drive engineering teams to not just deliver features but deliver true customer value with each release. 
  • Governance & Continuous Improvement: Define and track key engineering metrics/KPIs (e.g. velocity, quality, uptime) to monitor team performance. Create a culture of data-driven continuous improvement and operational excellence, refining processes (code review, QA, deployment) for efficiency and quality. Oversee resource allocation, budgeting, and capacity planning for the engineering department as needed to meet business demand, while maintaining a pragmatic balance between short-term delivery and long-term technical health (technical debt management, scalability planning, etc.). 

Qualifications:

  • Experience: 10+ years of experience in software development, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing engineering teams. Proven success leading and scaling engineering groups; experience managing multiple teams or squads (including remote/distributed teams) is highly valued. 
  • SaaS and Cloud Expertise: Demonstrated experience in the Software-as-a-Service industry, with understanding of delivering enterprise-grade SaaS products at scale. Solid knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and infrastructure for scalable web applications. Familiarity with multi-tenant architecture and iterative deployment of cloud services is expected. 
  • Technical Background: Strong background in full-stack web application development. Proficiency with Java or similar object-oriented languages for backend development, and hands-on knowledge of relational databases (e.g. Microsoft SQL Server) for data storage and optimization. Comfortable with modern front-end frameworks and RESTful API design. Broad architectural knowledge including microservices, SOA, and event-driven designs is a must. 
  • Legacy Modernization Experience: Hands-on experience modernising legacy systems or monolithic applications and migrating them to modern stacks. Familiarity with iterative modernization patterns (e.g., the strangler pattern for phased re-architecture) 
  • Engineering Best Practices: Deep understanding of modern engineering best practices and tools. Experience implementing Agile methodologies and running Scrum teams effectively. Expertise in CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and DevOps culture to ensure fast yet safe delivery of code to production. Ability to drive high code quality, maintainability and use of version control (Git) and collaborative development techniques. 
  • Leadership & Communication: Outstanding leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills. Able to inspire and motivate teams with a clear vision while also providing hands-on guidance when needed. Highly collaborative working style, able to partner with other department leaders and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Customer-focused mindset with a track record of working closely with customers or end-users to shape product direction. 
  • Strategic and Pragmatic: Strategic thinker with business acumen, capable of aligning technology strategy with company objectives. At the same time, pragmatic problem-solving skills with the ability to make sound decisions under ambiguity and prioritise initiatives that deliver the highest value to customers and the business. Demonstrated success in balancing long-term architectural vision with timely delivery of incremental results is key. 
  • Scaling Teams & Processes: Prior experience growing an engineering team through a high-growth phase and evolving team structure, processes, and culture to support that growth. Demonstrated ability to implement effective hiring processes, onboarding, and career progression frameworks is beneficial. 
  • Education: Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience). A postgraduate degree or relevant industry certifications are a plus, but proven skills and experience are valued most. 

 

 

EEO

Follett Software provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to, among others, individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. If you are interested in applying for employment and need assistance or an accommodation in the application process due to a disability, please contact us by email and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. 

 Email:  recruiting@follettsoftware.com

CCPA Notice for California Residents: https://follettsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Notice-to-California-Applicants.pdf

 

 

 

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