Associate Director / Director, Software Engineering
Foundation Medicine · Boston · $208,640–$247,760 (stated in the posting)
This position may be hired at the Associate Director or Director level based on the selected candidate's experience and qualifications.
About the Job:
The Associate Director, Software Engineering (Engineering Enablement) is responsible for establishing and evolving the technical foundation that enables engineering teams to deliver secure, compliant, reliable, and scalable software solutions efficiently.
This role operates across multiple engineering domains and serves as a strategic partner to Architecture, Security, Product Management, Validation, Quality, Infrastructure, and Software Engineering leadership. The position owns engineering-wide enablement capabilities including DevOps platforms, software development lifecycle (SDLC) tooling, developer productivity systems, architecture governance, platform engineering, cloud enablement, and secure software delivery practices.
The Associate Director provides technical leadership, establishes engineering standards and guardrails, drives adoption of modern software engineering practices, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement across FMI's software development organization.
Key Responsibilities:
- Engineering Platform and DevOps Leadership
- Define and execute the Engineering Enablement strategy aligned with FMI technology objectives
- Own and oversee enterprise software engineering platforms, including CI/CD pipelines, source control systems, artifact repositories, testing platforms, deployment automation, release management, and observability tooling
- Lead the evolution of platform engineering capabilities that improve developer productivity and reduce delivery friction
- Establish engineering standards for build, deployment, monitoring, observability, reliability, and operational excellence
- Drive Infrastructure-as-Code, automation-first, and self-service practices across development teams
- Define and track engineering effectiveness measures, including delivery speed, reliability, recovery, adoption, and developer experience indicators
- Architecture Governance and Technical Standards
- Partner with Engineering leadership to establish architecture principles, engineering guardrails, and technology standards
- Create and maintain reference architectures, reusable design patterns, paved-road solutions, and approved technology patterns
- Participate in technical reviews to ensure solutions align with scalability, performance, reliability, maintainability, interoperability, and security objectives
- Facilitate lightweight architecture review and exception processes for major business and technology initiatives
- Guide teams in the appropriate adoption of cloud-native, event-driven, API-first, and service-oriented architectures
- SDLC, Quality, and Compliance Enablement
- Own software delivery tooling supporting requirements management, traceability, design documentation, validation, testing, release management, evidence generation, and controlled deployment
- Continuously improve software development lifecycle processes and associated tooling to reduce cycle time while maintaining quality and compliance
- Ensure engineering platforms support applicable requirements within regulated environments
- Drive standardization of engineering workflows, templates, automated quality gates, stage gates, and delivery controls
- Partner with Quality and Regulatory stakeholders to streamline validation and compliance activities through automation and formalized evidence
- Security and DevSecOps
- Collaborate with Information Security teams to embed security practices throughout the software development lifecycle
- Drive implementation and adoption of DevSecOps capabilities including static application security testing, dynamic application security testing, software composition analysis, container and infrastructure scanning, secrets management, software bill of materials generation, and vulnerability workflows
- Establish secure-by-design engineering standards, threat modeling practices, and automated enforcement mechanisms for security and compliance controls
- Improve visibility, ownership, prioritization, and remediation of software and platform vulnerabilities
- Engineering Productivity and Developer Experience
- Identify opportunities to improve developer productivity through automation, reusable platform services, internal developer portals, AI-assisted development tools, and workflow simplification
- Partner with engineering leaders and teams to reduce cognitive load, eliminate recurring friction, and improve the end-to-end developer journey
- Develop standardized onboarding experiences and self-service documentation for engineers and engineering teams
- Build and maintain internal engineering documentation, knowledge resources, standards, and best practices
- Create feedback mechanisms and measures to continuously improve developer experience and platform adoption
- Leadership and Organizational Impact
- Lead, mentor, and develop engineers focused on engineering enablement, tooling, automation, architecture, and platform capabilities
- Build communities of practice around architecture, DevOps, security, testing, reliability, and engineering standards
- Influence technical direction across multiple engineering organizations and drive alignment through collaboration and measurable outcomes
- Manage technology investments, vendor relationships, platform roadmaps, service ownership, and lifecycle planning for engineering tooling
- Create and deliver presentations, roadmaps, documentation, metrics, and recommendations to Technology leadership and cross-functional stakeholders
- Other duties as assigned
- Comply with FMI's attendance policies
Qualifications:
Basic Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline and 8+ years of professional software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, or related technology experience; OR equivalent relevant professional experience
- 8+ years of experience leading technical teams, platforms, programs, or engineering initiatives spanning multiple teams
- 4+ years of management experience
- Experience building, administering, or supporting modern software delivery platforms and cloud-based engineering ecosystems
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field
- Experience working in a regulated industry such as healthcare, biotechnology, diagnostics, medical devices, or life sciences
- Demonstrated expertise with public cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP and with infrastructure automation, containers, orchestration, and observability
- Experience designing or operating CI/CD platforms, source control, artifact management, automated testing, release management, and developer self-service capabilities
- Experience implementing DevSecOps capabilities and secure software development practices
- Strong understanding of distributed system design, architecture governance, reliability engineering, API and integration patterns, and technology lifecycle management
- Experience supporting software development processes aligned with applicable standards or regulations such as IEC 62304, FDA guidance, GxP, HIPAA, or 21 CFR Part 11
- Experience with automated requirements traceability, validation evidence, test orchestration, or formal software delivery controls
- Experience evaluating and responsibly enabling AI-assisted software development and engineering productivity solutions
- Demonstrated history of leading organizational change, driving adoption, and managing multiple concurrent initiatives
- Excellent written and oral communication, collaboration, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills
- Understanding of HIPAA and the importance of patient data privacy
- Commitment to reflect FMI’s values: Integrity, Courage, and Passion
The expected salary range for this position at the Associate Director level based on the primary location of Boston, MA is $208,640 - $247,760 per year. The expected salary range for this position at the Director level based on the primary location of Boston, MA is $238,000 - $280,000 per year. The salary range is commensurate with Foundation Medicine's compensation practice and considers factors including, but not limited to, education, training, experience, external market conditions, criticality of role, and internal equity. A discretionary annual bonus may be available based on individual and Company performance. This position also qualifies for Foundation Medicine's benefits.
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