At Appian, we're not only about building awesome software, but also about growing our culture of passion, energy, and innovation; great people, great software! As a Director of Software Development you will be the technical and execution leader for an engineering team of about 50 people, overseeing developer talent and staffing, technical strategy, software development lifecycle, and delivery plans for the entire team.

This position will be specifically focused on the foundational software components and core services of the Appian architecture, such as data persistence and integration, workflow execution, content management, identity and authorization. You will count other engineering teams among your customers, and form strong relationships with counterparts within the department as well as stakeholders in other departments. You will create a collaborative organization with motivated talent that values technical excellence and consistently ships quality software. You will see past the status quo and industry trends to create a sustainable technical vision for much of what makes the Appian platform unique.

What you'll do:

• Help define the vision and strategy for the core components of the platform to stay ahead of customer demand and feature development.
• Work with Engineering VPs, User Experience, Product Management, and business stakeholders to co-create quarterly plan and portfolio backlog.
• Drive early-stage initiation to help conceive and plan what should be built next.
• Build and promote aligned, motivated, and autonomous development teams.
• Create a collaborative workplace and promote a customer-oriented attitude.
• Manage full lifecycle of staffing: internships, recruiting, onboarding, continuing education, promotions, transfers, or offboarding.
• Manage capacity and marshal resources to balance strategic and tactical needs.
• Mentor and support managers and squad coaches to ensure smooth team operations.
• Ensure efficient and predictable delivery of releases.
• Escalate urgent issues to Engineering VPs to identify alternatives and solutions.
• Coordinate response to urgent customer issues requiring hotfixes and keep affected parties and informed about progress.

About you:

• You are a strong leader with solid experience building frameworks and promoting re-use, likely as a former software architect or principal turned people manager
• You have a product- and customer-oriented attitude to development: your success ultimately lies in the adoption and impact of the software your team builds
• You have an undifferentiated passion for full-stack technologies, both industry-standard and proprietary
• You are familiar with multiple programming paradigms, data persistence and analytics technologies, integration standards, user interfaces, and APIs
• You are able to leverage modern cloud-native technologies to design for scalability, performance, security, observability, and reliability

Preferred Experience Level: 10+ years in software development, 3+ years managing managers; experience as a ScrumMaster or agile coach strongly recommended

Education: B.S. in Computer Science or related field, advanced degree preferred

About Us:

Appian helps organizations build apps and workflows rapidly, with a low-code automation platform. Combining people, technologies, and data in a single workflow, Appian can help companies maximize their resources and improve business results. Many of the world's largest organizations use Appian applications to improve customer experience, achieve operational excellence, and simplify global risk management and compliance. Our employees create opportunities to drive hands-on impact both with our customers and throughout the organization, which creates an environment where meaningful work is met with career growth and opportunity. As a result, we are proud to have been recognized as a Washington Post Top Workplace for seven consecutive years. Simply put, we are changing the way businesses operate and our employees are to thank for Appian's success.

Appian Corporation is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. Further, Appian will not discriminate against applicants for inquiring about, discussing or disclosing their pay or, in certain circumstances, the pay of their co-worker, Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination .

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at ReasonableAccommodations@appian.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Requests for accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.