Corporate Systems Director, IT

PenFed Credit Union; McLean (VA); Hybrid; USD 122,000 - 244,000; Full time

Job summary

PenFed Credit Union in Tysons, Virginia seeks a Hybrid Corporate Systems Director, IT to lead our corporate systems, enterprise production control and related technology teams. You will shape modernization, ensure stability and performance, and align technology initiatives with business goals as a member of the senior IT leadership.

You will drive governance, vendor management, risk controls, and strategic investments while mentoring staff and fostering AI-enabled delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in technology/engineering.
• 8–10 years in Corporate Systems/ERP, with 4–6 years in leadership in financial services.
• 2–4 years of direct people management experience.
• Experience in implementation/maintenance of Peoplesoft and Nautilus systems.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency in creating and presenting management summaries and dashboards.
• Strong customer service and communication skills, oral and written.
• Knowledge of enterprise monitoring tools and dashboards.
• Experience with AI tools preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute modernization strategy for platforms to ensure business continuity.
• Manage technology budget and resource allocation for the platform area.
• Oversee vendor relationships, SLAs and performance standards.
• Lead thought leadership in long-range strategy planning and policy development.
• Partner with business leaders; translate technical issues into business impacts and solutions.
• Establish KPIs, dashboards, and reporting mechanisms for service health.
• Oversee vulnerability management and prevent recurrence of issues.
• Coordinate incidents, changes, and governance; ensure First Time Right outcomes.
• Collaborate with IT Governance, Audit, Vendors and stakeholders.
• Conduct regular service reviews with vendors and manage contracts/renewals.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic planning

Stakeholder management

Communication

Problem solving

Dashboards

AI tools

Education

Bachelor’s degree in technology/engineering

Tools

Peoplesoft

Nautilus

UiPath

Job description

PenFed is hiring a (Hybrid) Corporate Systems Director, IT at our Tysons, Virginia location.The primary responsibility for this role is to act as a strategic leader of corporate systems technology to lead our corporate systems, enterprise production control and other technology teams. This critical role is responsible for the overall business project delivery and modernization strategy of our Corporate Systems, ensuring its stability and performance as it continues to support essential business operations. This leader will act as a key liaison, engaging business leaders to align technology initiatives with organizational goals and guarantee the delivery of world-class technology support. This role will serve as a member of the senior IT leadership team in shaping business and IT strategy, making investment and priority trade-off decisions, reducing unit costs, negotiating and managing vendor contracts, adopting AI approach to delivery and improving employee talent, commitment and morale.

This leader will help improve system availability, resiliency, security and stability through prevention of issues causing unavailability, detecting through effective monitoring and early intervention, managing the outage calls with all the stakeholders efficiently and purposefully. This role is critical in ensuring continuous improvement of corporate systems covering enterprise systems like PeopleSoft, Nautilus, UiPath and Production Control. The leader ensures effective vulnerability management, reporting & tracking, and deploy efficient strategies to prevent repeat issues. The job requires extensive experience in leading and maturing corporate system processes, specifically in Production Control, Batch Job execution, UiPath BOTs, Peoplesoft, Nautilus systems. This position will work with IT Governance, Business Resiliency, Audit, vendors, business stakeholders, Information security, infrastructure, PenFed senior management and other IT teams to stabilize and mature system health.

Equivalent combination of education and experience is considered.

• Bachelor’s degree in technology/engineering
• Minimum of 8-10 years of experience in Corporate Systems, ERP systems, Batch environment management, with at least 4-6 years in a leadership role, preferably in financial services.
• 2-4 yrs of direct people management responsibility
• Experience in implementation/maintenance of Peoplesoft/Nautilus systems
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills
• High proficiency with creating and presenting management summary reports and Dashboards.
• Require excellent customer service, oral and written communication skills.
• Basic knowledge and experience in using enterprise level monitoring tools and dashboards.
• Experience using A.I. tools, working with teams leveraging AI tools preferred.

Supervisory Responsibility

This position will supervise employees.

Licenses and Certifications

PMP, Six Sigma preferred.

Work Environment

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly exposed to an indoor office setting with moderate noise.

*Most roles require working in an office setting with moderate noise and the ability to lift 25 pounds.*

Travel

Limited travel to various worksites is required.

Pay TransparencyThe anticipated starting salary range for this role is $121,800.00 - $243,796.00This position is eligible for an organizational performance based annual bonus, subject to board discretion and approval.This position is eligible for an individual performance based annual bonus.

#LI-Hybrid

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of job duties, and the position will perform other duties as assigned.

Strategic Leadership & Systems Management

• Modernization Strategy: Develop and execute a thoughtful, phased strategy for the continued support, enhancement, and eventual modernization of platforms, ensuring business continuity throughout the lifecycle.
• Budget & Resource Allocation: Manage the technology budget for the platform area, making strategic investment decisions on tooling, infrastructure, and personnel.
• Vendor Management: Oversee relationships with all key technology partners and vendors related to the platforms and associated infrastructure.
• Thought Leadership: Brings thought leadership to long-range strategy planning and leads policy development to address complex business issues.

Business Alignment & Stakeholder Management

• Executive Partnership: Act as the primary technology point of contact for business unit leaders. Translate complex technical platform issues into clear business impacts and solutions.
• Stakeholder Management: Communicates effectively with peers and team members to meet division objectives. Staying in constant touch with business partners, understanding their needs, comes up with effective solutions leveraging the investments made already. Proactively identifies & addresses issues to avoid escalations & reactive issue resolution.
• Own and drive the strategy, governance, and execution of application management functions for the corporate systems area, including the management of the lifecycle of changes, incidents and associated problems.
• Establish KPIs, dashboards, and reporting mechanisms to monitor service health and drive accountability.
• Oversee the vulnerability management process, ensuring timely and effective resolution of high-severity vulnerabilities and deploy strategies to prevent them in future.
• Coordinate, monitor, and support general activities related to systems upkeep, business queries, incidents, problems and changes. Facilitate daily, weekly and monthly meetings with stakeholders. Escalate concerns through the appropriate process to minimize business impact with a key objective of First Time Right
• Production Control - Identify production environment stability trends. Analysis of the incidents as well as recurring alerts, to identify the associated root causes and develop plans and actions to resolve and eliminate these problems at all Severity Levels.
• Work with IT Governance, Business Resiliency, Audit, Vendors, Business Stakeholders, PenFed Senior Management and other IT teams.
• Manage relationships with third party service providers, ensuring contractual obligations, SLAs, and performance standards are met.
• Conduct regular service reviews and performance evaluations with vendors.
• Collaborate with procurement and legal teams for contract negotiations and renewals.