Director, Software Engineering – Residential
Simpson Strong-Tie · Plano · $142,200–$241,700 (stated in the posting)
Simpson Strong-Tie is a leader in engineered structural connectors, software, and solutions for the building industry. We maintain a reputation as a trusted manufacturer, partner, and corporate citizen committed to our customers and employees.
Our founder, Barc Simpson established 9 Principles of Business we live out as company values and have made Simpson Strong-Tie an inspiring place to work since 1956. Our team of talented people are dedicated to our shared mission: to provide solutions that help people design and build safer, stronger structures.
Learn about our company culture directly from our team.
YOU
The Director, Software Engineering –Residential leads software development across our three residential software divisions. You will lead multiple engineering managers and roughly 30 developers and QA engineers, reporting to the Vice President, Digital Solutions. Your mandate is to modernize our residential applications and how we deliver them.
You will bring multiple divisions onto shared engineering practices and build one collaborative engineering culture. You will work as a peer to the Director, Platform Engineering, whose team provides the cloud platform and tooling your teams build on. Our residential applications are predominantly Microsoft-based, a mix of legacy desktop software and cloud applications running on Azure.
You will lead the move from desktop to cloud and modernize the existing cloud applications. This is a leader-of-leaders role that still requires real technical depth. You will lead architecture and modernization decisions and review designs.
You will not be expected to write production code.
WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING (% of Time)
Application Modernization and Architecture (25%)
- Define and execute a modernization roadmap for the residential application portfolio, including re-platforming and incremental migration of legacy applications.
- Own application architecture decisions, lead design reviews, and set standards for cloud-native application development.
- Manage technical debt deliberately, balancing modernization against ongoing customer commitments.
- Use product telemetry and usage data to guide modernization priorities.
- Ensure applications meet customer expectations for usability and accessibility.
Delivery Modernization and Engineering Excellence (25%)
- Standardize the software development life cycle across the managed divisions, consolidating tooling and practices.
- Drive adoption of modern delivery practices: CI/CD, automated testing, and frequent, small releases.
- Lead the shift from manual QA toward automated quality engineering, including reskilling QA staff.
- Measure delivery performance using DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, time to restore) and act on the results.
- Build secure development practices into the life cycle, including vulnerability management.
- Own application-level reliability and incident response, using observability tooling provided by Platform Engineering.
- Evaluate and adopt AI-assisted development tools where they improve speed or quality.
Team Leadership and Culture (25%)
- Lead, coach, and develop a geographically distributed engineering organization spanning multiple U.S. time zones, including both direct and indirect, holding them accountable for performance.
- Unite different teams with different histories, stacks, and norms into one collaborative engineering culture.
- Lead the change management that modernization requires, bringing teams along rather than imposing change.
- Hire, develop, and retain engineering talent; address underperformance directly.
- Set clear goals, performance measures, and career development plans across the organization.
- Build a succession bench by developing future engineering leaders.
- Establish operating rhythms, communication standards, and team norms that promote collaboration, accountability, and inclusion in a remote-first environment
Strategy, Planning, and Budget (15%)
- Set the technical strategy for residential software in alignment with Digital Solutions objectives.
- Develop and manage the engineering budget for the residential software organization.
- Lead quarterly and annual planning, keeping the Vice President and senior leadership informed on progress, risks, and impediments.
- Manage vendor and third-party relationships as needed supporting the residential applications.
Cross-Functional Partnership (10%)
- Partner with Product Management on roadmap, prioritization, and trade-off decisions.
- Work with the Director, Platform Engineering under clearly defined ownership boundaries and a shared roadmap.
- Explain technical concepts, trade-offs, and progress clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 10+ years of software development experience.
- 5+ years leading engineering teams, including 3+ years managing managers.
- Proven experience leading distributed software engineering teams across multiple geographic locations and time zones.
- Proven experience leading the modernization of legacy applications, such as desktop or on-premises software moving to cloud or web.
- Experience leading engineering teams on the Microsoft technology stack, including Azure cloud services
- Proven experience modernizing software delivery: CI/CD adoption, automated testing, and measurable improvement in delivery metrics.
- Experience establishing operating models, standardizing development practices and tooling across multiple teams or business units for remote teams.
- Track record of leading organizational change and building a unified culture across teams with different histories.
- Direct experience hiring, developing talent, and managing performance.
- Strong partnership with Product Management on roadmap and prioritization.
- Ability to work effectively with peer leaders under shared ownership, including platform and infrastructure teams.
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication, including with non-technical audiences.
DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
If you can do everything listed above, you have got what it takes. Perhaps some of the following would be helpful too:
- Experience in residential construction software or the broader construction ecosystem (builders, dealers, designers, CAD/BIM integrations).
- Fluency in cloud-native application architecture and modern web and application frameworks.
- Experience leading multi-site or distributed engineering teams.
- Experience transitioning QA organizations from manual testing to automated quality engineering.
- Working knowledge of secure development practices and application security.
- Experience adopting AI-assisted development tools within engineering teams.
- Executive presence and experience reporting to vice president-level or senior leadership.
TRAVER REQUIRED
This position requires domestic and international travel up to 20% of the time.
WORK STATUS & LOCATION
This is a full-time, exempt position is located in Plano, TX with a hybrid Tuesday thru Thursday onsite schedule at our Plano, TX location. Remote candidates will be considered but will need to work Central Time core hours.
RELOCATION
Relocation is not available for this position
PAY
$142,200 – $241,700 / year
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT
The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, talk, and hear, and sometimes walk and stand. While performing the duties of this job, the employee may occasionally push or lift up to 25 lbs.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
This job operates in a professional office environment where standard office equipment such as computers, phones, printers/scanners, etc. are frequently used. The job may risk exposure to heat and/or cold, loud noise levels, vibration, and moving mechanical parts.
REWARDS AT SIMPSON STRONG-TIE
We recognize and reward employees with a carefully designed and comprehensive rewards package, including competitive compensation, quarterly bonuses or commission and first-rate benefits. May exclude some positions, such as seasonal jobs.
- Quarterly Bonuses/Commission: You will be eligible for either a bonus or commission, paid on a quarterly basis. We believe all employees affect customers, sales and revenue — directly or indirectly – and should be rewarded by sharing the company profits.
- Benefits: We provide a wide range of benefits for eligible full-time employees including: medical, dental, vision, retirement contributions, employee stock purchase and bonus plans, pay for holidays, vacation, sick days, funerals and jury duty, years of service awards, employee discounts, employee referral bonuses, charitable contribution matching, education reimbursement and more. View benefit plan details here: https://benefits.strongtie.com/.
In keeping with our values and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our communities, we are an equal opportunity employer. This means that our employment decisions are based on your qualifications and merit, and our business needs.
Please note all job offers are contingent upon a successful drug screen and criminal background check, in accordance with applicable local, state, and federal laws.
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Company: Simpson Strong-Tie Company Inc.