Vice President of Research & Development

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Vice President of Research & Development based in United States. This executive role leads research and development across a multi-product software portfolio, with a strong focus on AI-driven engineering transformation. You will define the technical roadmap, modernize development practices, and accelerate delivery through practical adoption of AI and agentic workflows. The position combines strategic technology leadership with accountability for releases, quality, security, financial performance, and organizational development. You will guide engineering leaders, allocate resources across products, and turn emerging technology into measurable customer and business value. A major focus will be building safe, governed AI-enabled delivery practices while modernizing legacy platforms and supporting established customer environments. You will work closely with Product, Operations, Support, Sales, Finance, customers, partners, and executive leadership to align technology decisions with business priorities. Success in this role is measured through delivery predictability, product quality, AI maturity, financial discipline, organizational health, and tangible customer outcomes.

Lead the R&D strategy and establish a multi-year technical roadmap across the Corrections and Law Enforcement product portfolio. Drive the adoption of AI development tools and agentic, human-on-the-loop engineering practices across development teams. Establish AI delivery governance, including review gates, validation processes, security reviews of AI-generated code, and recurring measurement of AI maturity and business outcomes. Research and evaluate emerging AI tools, models, workflows, and development practices, integrating proven approaches into standard engineering processes. Rebuild roadmap assumptions around AI-enabled delivery acceleration and redirect recovered engineering capacity toward high-value customer problems and opportunities. Determine where AI should be embedded directly into customer-facing products and where it can provide a faster path to customer outcomes and revenue opportunities. Own technology standards, architectural direction, technical documentation, and development practices across the portfolio. Evaluate build, buy, consolidation, and modernization opportunities, providing data-backed recommendations to executive leadership. Monitor industry trends, competitive capabilities, and emerging technologies relevant to law enforcement, corrections, justice, and enterprise software. Own release commitments across development teams, including scope, sequencing, timelines, status reporting, risks, blockers, and dependencies. Standardize development processes, tooling, and engineering metrics across independently operating organizations. Establish and enforce quality standards covering code review, automated testing, defect thresholds, release readiness, and AI-generated code. Maintain strong product and platform security practices and ensure development activities meet applicable regulatory, contractual, and industry requirements. Partner with Support Services to connect customer issues and escalations with engineering priorities. Lead, mentor, and develop engineering managers and directors, establishing clear goals, performance expectations, succession plans, and talent strategies. Recruit and retain engineering talent while building depth across critical technical roles. Structure engineering capacity across onshore, offshore, and contract resources based on evolving business and delivery needs. Own the R&D budget, including headcount planning, capitalization, AI tooling investments, and vendor commitments. Contribute R&D inputs to monthly forecasting and quarterly executive reporting, including explanations for budget variances. Improve development cost as a percentage of revenue while maintaining delivery quality and customer commitments. Allocate engineering resources toward products and initiatives with the strongest expected return, supported by clear data and business rationale. Lead platform migration and modernization initiatives, including sequencing, customer impact management, technical debt reduction, and legacy dependency retirement. Measure adoption and business impact of new capabilities and redirect or stop investments that do not demonstrate sufficient value. Serve as the primary liaison between R&D and Operations, Support, Product Management, Sales, and Finance. Present roadmap progress, AI maturity, risks, and investment recommendations to executive leadership in clear, actionable business terms. Engage directly with customers, partners, and user groups to validate technology direction and identify product gaps. Support technical due diligence and integration activities for acquisitions joining the portfolio. Requirements Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience; an advanced degree is preferred. 10+ years of experience in software development, including at least 3 years leading engineering organizations at the Director level or above. Demonstrated hands-on, current use of AI development tools, with a practical understanding of their capabilities, limitations, and rapidly evolving applications. Experience advancing an engineering organization from individual AI assistance toward agentic, human-on-the-loop delivery, including the governance and validation required for safe implementation. Strong knowledge of software architecture, cloud technologies, modern development methodologies, secure development practices, and enterprise software delivery. Proven ability to translate AI capabilities into customer-facing value and revenue opportunities, rather than focusing solely on internal productivity. Experience owning a multi-product or multi-company development portfolio with direct budget and resource accountability. Experience modernizing legacy platforms while continuing to support an established customer base. Strong understanding of security practices, including security review and validation of AI-generated code. Experience delivering enterprise software for public sector, public safety, regulated, or similarly complex markets is strongly preferred. Strong strategic thinking, financial judgment, resource allocation, and prioritization skills. Excellent executive communication skills, with the ability to explain technical strategy, risks, investments, and opportunities to non-technical stakeholders. Proven ability to lead through organizational change, ambiguity, and evolving technology landscapes. Strong people leadership, mentoring, talent development, and succession-planning capabilities. Ability to build transparent, collaborative relationships across engineering, product, operations, sales, finance, support, and executive teams. Strong understanding of release management, product quality, engineering metrics, technical debt, platform modernization, and operational performance. Benefits Annual salary range of $125,000–$135,000 USD . Remote work opportunity, with the source listing multiple eligible U.S. locations. Executive-level ownership of a multi-product R&D portfolio. Opportunity to lead organization-wide adoption of AI development and agentic engineering practices. Direct influence over technical strategy, architecture, modernization, delivery, and resource allocation. Exposure to emerging AI technologies, modern cloud development, enterprise software, and platform transformation. Leadership opportunity spanning engineering managers, directors, and technical teams across multiple product organizations. Opportunity to connect technology investments directly to customer outcomes, revenue opportunities, delivery performance, and business efficiency. Collaborative environment with cross-functional exposure to Product, Operations, Support, Sales, Finance, customers, partners, and executive leadership. Competitive compensation and benefits package, with additional workplace perks and flexibility referenced by the employer.

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