Director of Development

Location: Canada or USA — possibility of teleworking (remote work option available)
About SOVRA
SOVRA is a leading public procurement platform serving over 7,000 government agencies and connecting them with more than 1 million suppliers across North America. SOVRA offers comprehensive, end-to-end solutions tailored for the public sector.

SOVRA's solutions are purpose-built to address the unique challenges of public procurement, ensuring compliance, enhancing efficiency, and promoting transparency. Our commitment to innovation has been recognized with the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement (AEP) Certification from the National Procurement Institute, affirming our platform's adherence to the highest standards in efficiency and vendor accessibility.

By leveraging SOVRA's advanced tools and expansive supplier network, public agencies can optimize every tax dollar spent, drive better procurement outcomes, and deliver exceptional services to their communities.

About The Job
A Director of Software Development is responsible for overseeing the entire software development process, including managing teams of developers, setting development goals, allocating resources, collaborating with stakeholders, ensuring projects align with business objectives, and driving continuous improvement in software development practice.

Core responsibilities include overseeing research and experimentation, aligning AI use cases with product and commercial strategy, guiding model governance, and reporting to executive stakeholders.

We're looking for a technically strong leader — someone who will elevate the level of technical excellence across our team. You should be confident leading thoughtful technical discussions and collaborating closely with our architects. While you won't be hands-on in system design, you'll be expected to ask the right questions, challenge ideas constructively, and help guide strategic technical decisions.
What will your primary responsibilities look like?

• Leading and managing software development teams: This involves providing guidance and support to team members, fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment, and promoting professional growth and development.
• Setting and driving the technical vision and strategy for the organization: A director of software engineering is responsible for defining the long-term technical roadmap and ensuring that it aligns with the overall business objectives.
• Providing technical guidance and mentorship to team members: A director of software engineering plays a crucial role in fostering the professional growth and development of their team members by offering advice, mentorship, and support.
• Strong knowledge of modern software architecture and design for high-scale web applications.
• Collaborating with stakeholders to define project requirements and deliverables involves effective communication and translating business needs into technical solutions.
• Ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality software solutions: A director of software engineering must prioritize meeting project deadlines and delivering software that meets the highest quality standards.
• Managing and allocating resources effectively involves assessing team members' skills and capabilities, assigning tasks, and optimizing resource allocation to maximize productivity.
• Identifying and mitigating risks: A software engineering director needs to proactively identify potential risks and develop strategies to minimize their impact on project outcomes.
• Establishing and implementing software development best practices involves defining coding standards, methodologies, and quality assurance processes to ensure consistent and efficient software development practices.
• Strong leadership and strategic planning skills.
• Expertise in managing software development projects, from conception to completion.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities, with a focus on scalability and performance optimization.
• Outstanding communication and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Support the Sales team during the presales process to validate timelines and estimates for upcoming projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's (preferred) degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or other technical discipline.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience in an Engineering management role at the director level, managing multiple teams working on different projects.
• More than 5 years of experience previously as a software developer, solution architect or related role.
• Required: Authorized to work in Canada or the U.S – unfortunately, we cannot sponsor work visas or transfers at this time.
• A deep understanding of modern software engineering practices, including CI/CD and cloud infrastructure.

Desired Profile

• Agile expert and practitioner.
• Back-end development using Java, Angular, XSLT, and Python, and comfortable with large data sets (ideally in a SQL Server environment);
• Strong communicator, proficient in both French and English.
• Focused on customer satisfaction.
• Leadership, team management, and people skills.
• In-depth knowledge of Agile methodologies such as Scrum, etc.

• Experience:

• Lead AI development Projects.

• Experience leading the development of cloud applications.
• Experience with e-commerce projects would be a strong asset.

We still have many other things to offer you :

I appreciate your interest in SOVRA. However, only selected candidates will be contacted.

At SOVRA, we are dedicated to cultivating an inclusive and equitable work environment. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. We provide a work environment free from discrimination and harassment. In addition, we are committed to ensuring pay equity across our organization and regularly review our compensation practices.