Director Next Generation Architecture - Aerospace & Defense

Company Description

IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.

At IFS, we’re flexible, we’re innovative, and we’re focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society’s greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.

We celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.

By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.

We’re looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.

If you want to change the status quo, we’ll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.

Job Description

We're looking for an Engineering Leader who is equal parts technical leader and people leader — and who sees AI as a fundamental part of how modern software is built, not a bolt-on. This is a player-coach role — you'll lead one or more autonomous product teams while maintaining the technical depth of a Principal Engineer or Architect. You won't just manage engineers; you'll guide architectural decisions, set the technical bar, and help shape how we build enterprise software at IFS.

AI fluency is central to this role. You'll be expected to drive AI adoption across your teams — from AI-assisted development workflows that accelerate delivery, to AI-powered product capabilities that create customer value. You need to understand AI/ML integration patterns (RAG, agentic architectures, evaluation harnesses), guide your engineers in using AI tools effectively and responsibly, and ensure your teams can build, test, and validate AI-driven features. This isn't about hype — it's about making AI a practical, embedded part of how your teams work and what they ship.

Your teams own the full delivery lifecycle — design, development, testing, deployment, and operations. You'll ensure they have the clarity, context, and conditions to deliver great work, while taking direct responsibility for hiring, developing, and retaining the engineers on your teams.

This is not a role for managers who have left the code behind. You'll be expected to participate in design reviews, evaluate architectural trade-offs, unblock complex technical problems, and stay hands-on with modern engineering practices — including the AI tools and techniques your teams use daily.

What You'll Do

• Lead and grow engineers — hire, onboard, coach, and develop Software Engineers across the full career ladder, from associate through to senior lead level
• Own delivery outcomes — ensure your teams deliver high-quality software at a sustainable pace, balancing technical quality with business value
• Drive technical quality — participate in architectural reviews, guide technology choices, and ensure teams follow modern engineering practices (CI/CD, automated testing, observability, infrastructure as code)
• Champion AI fluency — drive adoption of AI-assisted development across your teams, ensure engineers can build and validate AI-powered product features, and foster a culture where AI is a practical tool, not a buzzword
• Remove obstacles — resolve cross-team dependencies, shield teams from organizational noise, and ensure engineers can focus on what matters
• Shape engineering culture — foster continuous learning, healthy debate, and a "you build it, you run it" mindset
• Partner cross-functionally — work closely with Product Management, Design, Architecture, and senior leadership to align technical execution with product strategy
• Develop specialisms — help engineers identify and grow deep expertise in areas such as front-end, back-end, data engineering, applied AI, platform/SRE, security, and more

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Significant experience in software engineering, with a track record of operating at Principal Engineer or Architect level — system design, cross-team architectural thinking, and technology strategy
• Proven experience managing and developing engineering teams (typically 5+ engineers), including hiring, performance management, and career development
• Strong hands-on background in modern software development: cloud-native architectures, microservices, API-first design, CI/CD, containerization, and infrastructure as code
• Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages (e.g., Go, Python, Java, C#, TypeScript) — you should be able to read, review, and reason about production code
• Demonstrated AI fluency — hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools, understanding of AI/ML integration patterns (RAG, agents, prompt engineering, evaluation), and a track record of driving AI adoption within engineering teams
• Experience leading teams that own the full delivery lifecycle: development, testing, deployment, and production operations
• Excellent communication skills — able to articulate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and translate business needs into engineering direction
• A coaching mindset — you measure your success by the growth and output of your team, not your personal technical contributions

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in enterprise software or SaaS product development at scale
• Experience building or leading teams that build AI-powered product capabilities — MLOps pipelines, AI safety and governance practices, or AI evaluation frameworks
• Background in multiple engineering disciplines (e.g., front-end and back-end, or platform and application development)
• Experience with event-driven architectures, message brokers, and streaming platforms
• Track record of modernising legacy systems or migrating to cloud-native architectures
• Experience engaging directly with enterprise customers in technical discussions, workshops, or co-creation sessions
• Familiarity with security practices (OWASP, threat modelling, security tooling in CI/CD)
• Experience with organizational design — team structures, team topologies, and scaling engineering organizations

What We're Looking For in You

• You're technically deep but your ambition is to multiply the impact of others, not just your own
• You lead with context, not control — you set direction and trust your teams to execute
• You're comfortable with healthy tension and constructive debate; you optimize for better decisions, not comfortable meetings
• You're AI-native — you use AI tools in your own work and you're energized by helping others do the same
• You stay curious — you're continuously learning and you expect the same from your teams
• You've got grit — you navigate ambiguity, remove blockers, and keep teams moving forward

Additional Information

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.