Managing Director, Software Engineering

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We are a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization and the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. Serving the education, workforce and learner communities has been at the heart of our mission for over 30 years. Our work - performed in a trusted, secure, and private environment - provides numerous time- and cost-saving benefits to students, schools, administrators, and requestors. Education leaders rely on the Clearinghouse's unique national student data resources to better understand student pathways and outcomes in order to help students succeed, and our research better informs practitioners and policymakers about student educational pathways and enables informed decision making.

The Managing Director, Software Engineering plays a critical leadership role in advancing the National Student Clearinghouse's mission through the delivery of scalable, cloud-native software solutions. This role leads multiple Agile Scrum teams focused on building and maintaining foundational platforms and services to support the Clearinghouse's core business functions. The Managing Director is responsible for driving engineering excellence, fostering a culture of innovation, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality, secure, and compliant software products.

This role requires a strategic thinker and hands-on leader who can align technical execution with business priorities. The Managing Director will collaborate closely with product management, architecture, infrastructure, and security teams to shape the technology roadmap and ensure that engineering efforts are well-integrated with organizational goals. Additionally, this leader will champion agile best practices, continuous delivery, and cloud-native development to accelerate the Clearinghouse's digital transformation.

The Managing Director, Software Engineering demonstrates leadership aligned with the Clearinghouse's mission and values, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, innovation, and technical excellence. This leader brings both strategic vision and practical experience, having worked in or closely with software development environments, and is capable of mentoring Agile Scrum teams to deliver impactful, cloud-based solutions.

Leadership Competencies:

• Demonstrate NSC's competencies, which align with our corporate values.
  
  
  
  • Senior Leadership Competencies include: Balances Stakeholders, Cultivates Innovation, Drives Vision and Purpose, Strategic Mindset, and Understanding the Business.
  
  
  
  

Balances Stakeholders:

• Builds strong, trust-based relationships with business and technical stakeholders across the organization.
• Collaborates closely with business leaders to understand evolving needs and ensures technology solutions are aligned with strategic objectives.
• Navigates competing priorities with pragmatism, delivering value-driven outcomes without overcommitting.

Cultivates Innovation:

• Encourages creative thinking and experimentation within engineering teams, supporting proof-of-concept work and iterative delivery
• Leverages past hands-on development experience to guide teams in adopting modern engineering practices and tools.
• Fosters a culture where learning from failure is embraced as part of innovation.

Drives Vision and Purpose:

• Communicates a compelling vision for how foundational, cloud-native software can support and advance the Clearinghouse's mission.
• Inspires teams by connecting day-to-day engineering work to broader organizational goals.
• Leads by example with emotional intelligence, curiosity, and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Strategic Mindset:

• Anticipates future business and technology trends, shaping a roadmap that balances long-term innovation with near-term delivery.
• Applies a systems-thinking approach to architecture and platform decisions, ensuring scalability and resilience.
• Aligns engineering strategy with business priorities through ongoing collaboration with product and executive leadership.

Understanding the Business:

• Possesses a deep understanding of the Clearinghouse's services, stakeholders, and mission.
• Translates business needs into technical solutions that are secure, compliant, and scalable.
• Acts as a bridge between business and technology, ensuring engineering teams are empowered with context and clarity.

Workforce Management:

• Build a team-based environment that aligns with company values, ways of working, and competencies.
• Recruit and select the best talent to help optimize skills and experiences and motivate and manage staff to maximize productivity and efficiency.
• Develop and manage career development and advancement opportunities at the Clearinghouse through MAPS conversations, developing and reporting on performance and goals, and defining and monitoring training and development plans to ensure job and career satisfaction.
• Ensure staff is adequately trained and provide guidance as needed.
• Monitor employee performance and conduct appraisals.
• Reward employees using formal and informal methods.
• Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

• Contribute to the planning and execution of cloud migration strategies, supporting a hybrid, multi-cloud environment.
• Collaborate with executive and senior leaders the CIO, CISO, and other senior leaders to shape the IT strategic plan and ensure engineering initiatives support broader organizational goals.
• Encourages teams to seek innovative approaches to the automation of tasks related to development, testing, deployment, and monitoring of Clearinghouse services.
• Participate in the assessment of external and internal technology capabilities required to achieve desired competitive positioning.
• Actively seeks opportunities for efficiencies and cost-effective technologies that reduce costs and optimize investments.
• Participate in the drafting and review of contracts, including service-level agreements (SLAs), to ensure clarity, enforceability, and alignment with operational goals.
• Performs research and analysis to assist the business leadership in establishing priorities and deploying appropriate technologies and solutions to meet changing business needs.
• Manages staff, contractors, third parties, cloud services providers, and vendors, to perform the development, testing, monitoring, maintenance, and support of Clearinghouse applications that supports each line of business.
• Lead multiple Agile Scrum teams in the design, development, and delivery of foundational, cloud-native software solutions that support the Clearinghouse's mission and evolving business needs.
• Provide hands-on guidance and mentorship to engineering teams, drawing on prior experience in software development environments to support technical decision-making and team growth.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement by coaching employees to enhance their performance over time, with a focus on increasing quality, accountability, and innovation.
• Encourage teams to explore automation opportunities across development, testing, deployment, and monitoring to improve efficiency and reliability.
• Takes initiative in thought leadership and creativity to develop new and innovative approaches to activities that enhance employee and company performance.
• Deals effectively with conflict, reaching agreement without damaging relationships and finding win-win solutions.
• Represent the Clearinghouse in external forums, including industry associations, technology partners, and educational institutions, to advocate for innovation and collaboration.
• Contributes to guiding staff and other leaders on how they will fulfill the company mission and vision.
• Creates new and innovative approaches to activities that enhance employee and company performance.
• Manage relationships with third-party vendors, contractors, and cloud service providers, ensuring accountability, performance, and alignment with internal standards.
• Actively seek opportunities to optimize financial investments and reduce costs through thoughtful technology decisions and vendor management.
• Develops strong partnerships with business owners for meeting business needs and ensuring timely delivery of all product capabilities.
• Actively seeks opportunities to optimize financial costs/investments when making decisions that have a financial implication.
• Actively looks for and uses external influences to make effective business decisions.

Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering. A combination of education and experience, including military service will also be considered.
• 12+ years of professional experience in the software development / Information Technology field including at the director level.
• 5+ years of experience leading a diverse team or function, in all aspects of complex, cross-functional projects, in a fast paced and highly competitive ever-changing data environment.
• 5+ years of experience in project budgeting, resource allocation, tracking, reporting and risk mitigation.
• Strong business acumen.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal skills with the proven ability to successfully work across organizational boundaries.
• Demonstrated ability to:
  
  
  
  • Work with Agile development and practices.
  • Effectively, and often simultaneously, communicate and influence at both a detailed operational/technical and at a higher overview level.
  • Develop a technical design/strategy/roadmap the compliments the roadmaps for the lines of businesses that are being supported.
  • Conduct presentations to all levels staff including executives and board of directors.
  • Identify and analyze service issues and provide resolution.
  • Think critically and strategically, and work with metrics to ground assumptions and hypotheses.
  
  
  
  
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and other collaboration tools.
• Talented at the Management competencies:
  
  
  
  • Making complex decisions - Experience in evaluating complex decisions, breaking down as necessary, considering all possible alternatives, and committing to the best choice based on available data.
  • Being flexible and adaptable - Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced working environment and work in a diplomatic and tactful manner with others.
  • Building collaborative relationships and optimizing diverse talent - Demonstrated ability to develop and lead a team in a positive and professional manner with a proven track record of facilitating cross-departmental issue identification, problem solving, and resolution.
  • Focusing on performance - Demonstrated ability to develop the service delivery roadmap and ensures individuals and teams are meeting commitments and service level agreements.
  
  
  
  
• Must live within a commutable distance to Herndon, VA or in one of the Clearinghouse's approved States for hiring purposes. Refer to our HR Policies Page, located on our Careers site at https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/careers/human-resource-policies/, for more details.
• Must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. We do not intend to sponsor external applicants for work visas, and may consider sponsorship only if no qualified candidates can be found who are authorized to work without sponsorship.
• Must be at least 18 years old.

Additional Desired Requirements:

• Master's degree

• Use of a computer for 8 or more hours a day.
• Use of a copy machine and telephone.
• Frequently required to sit for 7 or more hours per day in close proximity to others in an open office environment.
• Occasionally required to use hands and fingers to operate, handle, and reach.
• Vision abilities include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
• Must be flexible to do local, and out-of-town assignments and travel via car, train, and airplane when needed (5-10%).

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents. Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account, are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses. We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible! We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays, up to 3 weeks of paid parental leave during a 12-month period, and up to 5 days of paid military leave per calendar year. Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year. On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time. Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 11 paid holidays per year.

Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure and certain other qualifications. Employees can further their education and professional development by using our Employee Education Assistance Program, which establishes reimbursement for qualified education expenses upon successful completion of the program, and leveraging the enterprise-wide LinkedIn Learning subscription. There are additional employee benefits too, including but not limited to, mental health and well-being benefits. To find out more, please request a copy of our Benefits at a Glance!

Additionally, we reasonably believe that the salary range for this position is between $215,000 and $245,000.

The pay range listed above represents a general guideline and is not a guarantee of compensation or salary, and the National Student Clearinghouse considers a number of factors when determining base pay for offers, which include but are not limited to, responsibilities and scope of the job and the candidate's experience, education, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.

Internal Candidates: If you feel that you qualify and meet the requirements of the job, we highly encourage you to apply and focus on preparing for the application process. Once the final candidates are selected, they can anticipate a review of the compensation prior to any offer made.

This job announcement was posted to the National Student Clearinghouse's Careers site at www.studentclearinghouse.org/careers 6/27/2025 and the online application period will be open for at least 3 days. A completed online application is required to be considered for this opportunity.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities: The National Student Clearinghouse is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, marital status, veteran status (or known to have a spousal, family, business, social or other relationship or association with a protected veteran), sexual orientation, genetic information, arrest record, natural hairstyle, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. Our management team is dedicated to this policy with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, benefits, employee activities and general treatment during employment.

Pay Transparency Notice: The National Student Clearinghouse is a federal contractor that abides by all applicable equal opportunity laws and regulations. Under these laws, companies doing business with the federal government must provide applicants and employees with certain policies, including the following information. The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)