Director of AI-Driven Defense Engineering

IFS; Illinois; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible paid time off

Medical, dental, & vision insurance

401K with company contribution

Flexible spending accounts

Life insurance

Tuition assistance

Community involvement

Job summary

IFS is a global technology leader enabling mission-critical software for defense and aerospace customers. As Director of Engineering for our Defense solutions, you lead the engineering teams that build software for the U.S.

defense operators who keep fleets and platforms mission-ready. You are an engineer first and a people manager second, and you set the technical bar while hiring, developing and retaining top engineers.

Qualifications

• Technical depth: operate at Principal Engineer or Architect level with system design and tech strategy.
• People leadership: proven experience building and coaching engineering teams.
• Modern foundations: cloud-native architectures, microservices, API-first, CI/CD, IaC.
• AI fluency: hands-on with AI-assisted development and AI adoption within teams.
• Full-lifecycle ownership: lead teams from development through production operations.
• Communication: explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Eligibility: based in the United States and able to meet defense work requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow engineers across the full career ladder and mentor their growth.
• Be the technical leader: guide architecture, review production code, set engineering bar.
• Own delivery outcomes: ensure high-quality software at a sustainable pace.
• Drive engineering excellence: CI/CD, automated tests, observability, secure-by-default design.
• Champion AI fluency: drive AI-assisted development and AI-powered features with guardrails.
• Remove obstacles: shield teams from cross-team noise and unblock issues.
• Partner across the business: align with PM, Design, Architecture and defense customers.
• Shape engineering culture: foster learning, debate, and ownership across teams.

Skills

Technical depth

People leadership

Modern engineering foundations

AI fluency

Full-lifecycle ownership

Communication

Eligibility (US defense work)

Tools

Go

Python

Java

C#

TypeScript

Job description

IFS is a global technology leader enabling mission-critical software for defense and aerospace customers. As Director of Engineering for our Defense solutions, you lead the engineering teams that build software for the U.S.

defense operators who keep fleets and platforms mission-ready. You are an engineer first and a people manager second, and you set the technical bar while hiring, developing and retaining top engineers.