Director of Software Applications and Support

Commonwealth of VA Careers; Virginia (MN); On-site; USD 155,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

Northern VA Community College seeks a Director of Software Applications and Support to lead the enterprise software portfolio across administrative, academic, reporting, and student systems. You will drive governance, security, and continuous improvement while coordinating with executives and campus teams.

The role requires strategic leadership, budget oversight, and strong vendor management to ensure reliable, secure, and user-centered software services for faculty, staff, and students.

Qualifications

• Experience leading enterprise software applications and teams.
• Experience implementing and integrating enterprise applications in a complex environment.
• Experience with incident and request management, SLAs, and customer communication.
• Experience partnering with functional business owners to gather requirements and deliver solutions.
• Experience in software licensing, vendor contracts, and renewals.
• Experience applying security, access control, audit, and compliance requirements.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day leadership for staff responsible for enterprise applications and support.
• Plan, administer, and continuously improve enterprise software applications and related services.
• Manage vendor relationships, contracts, licensing, and procurement coordination.
• Ensure responsive application support, incident resolution, and root cause analysis.
• Oversee testing, QA, release readiness, and post-implementation validation.
• Develop and administer operating budgets for application platforms and services.
• Represent the college in governance discussions and strategic technology planning.

Skills

Staff leadership

Communication

Teamwork / independence

Analytical thinking

Enterprise application administration

Application security

Change & release management

Performance metrics & reporting

Vendor management

Microsoft ecosystem

Job description

Title: Director of Software Applications and Support

Agency: Northern VA Community College

Location: Fairfax County - 059

FLSA: Exempt

Hiring Range: $155,000 - $175,000

Full Time or Part Time: Full Time

Job Description

General Description: This position serves as the Director of Software Applications and Support and holds primary responsibility for the strategic leadership, operational management, implementation, integration, support, security, and continuous improvement of the enterprise software applications that sustain college business operations, academic services, student services, administrative functions, and institutional reporting.

Duties and Tasks

• Assists the Chief Information Officer / Chief Technology Officer and works collaboratively with senior leaders, functional business owners, and the information security, infrastructure, data, endpoint, service desk, and campus technology teams to ensure enterprise applications are reliable, secure, well governed, user centered, accessible, and aligned with institutional priorities.
• Provides day-to-day leadership and supervision for the staff responsible for enterprise application administration, application support, business analysis, integration coordination, quality assurance, reporting support, and vendor coordination, and is accountable for the service performance of the college's software application portfolio.
• Lead the planning, administration, and continuous improvement of enterprise software applications and related support services, including enterprise administrative systems, student and academic applications, reporting and analytics tools, integrations, workflow platforms, web-based applications, third‑party SaaS solutions, and internally supported business systems.
• Provide day-to-day leadership for the teams responsible for enterprise application administration, application support, business analysis, integration coordination, quality assurance, report support, vendor coordination, and customer‑facing software service delivery.
• Establish and maintain application governance, service ownership, role‑based access, data stewardship coordination, change management, release schedules, environment management, operational standards, application documentation, and service performance measures.
• Manage vendor relationships, contracts, licensing, support escalations, product roadmaps, service‑level expectations, third‑party risk and accessibility review, and procurement coordination for enterprise application platforms and related software services.
• Ensure responsive application support, incident and problem resolution, root cause analysis, user communication, training coordination, knowledge base development, and continuous improvement of software services used by faculty, staff, students, and administrative units.
• Coordinate application‑related project intake, prioritization, resourcing, scheduling, and status reporting in partnership with functional business owners, project management staff, and senior leadership.
• Oversee application testing and quality assurance practices, including test planning, regression and user acceptance testing coordination, defect tracking, release readiness review, and post‑implementation validation.
• Develop and administer the operating budget for application platforms, licensing, and professional services; forecast renewal and growth costs; and recommend investments that improve reliability, security, functionality, and total cost of ownership.
• Serve on the College Computing senior leadership team, contribute to strategic and annual technology planning, and represent the college in system‑level and state‑level application, integration, and software governance discussions.
• Make regular requests from employees for updates and input on college decisions and share feedback with supervisors for inclusion in the NOVA Brief.

Must be able to Pass CJIS Level 4 and FBI and Virginia State Police background check.

Minimum Qualifications:

Required KSAs:.

• Ability to lead, supervise, and develop technical staff, and to organize and manage multiple concurrent priorities, projects, upgrade cycles, and vendor release schedules with competing deadlines and shared resources.
• Excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership, functional business owners, technical peers, vendors, and end users; proven client-facing skills, including demonstrable experience managing high-impact customer relationships.
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment and independently with a self-sufficient, highly motivated approach; demonstrated willingness to cross‑train and to be cross‑trained in other roles and duties in support of a culture and reputation for excellence.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze and resolve problems at both functional and strategic levels, including the ability to interpret application logs, error reports, performance metrics, availability data, integration failure alerts, defect trends, and usage analytics to resolve incidents, identify risk, and recommend service improvements; ability to introduce innovative solutions and to learn evolving technologies as they emerge.
• Working knowledge of enterprise application administration across administrative, student, academic, workflow, and reporting systems, and of the full application lifecycle — requirements gathering, functional and technical design review, configuration management, environment management, testing (unit, system, regression, and user acceptance), deployment, patching, upgrade planning, documentation, and decommissioning.
• Knowledge of application security practices, including role‑based access design, least‑privilege permissions, separation of duties, environment segregation, privileged account handling, and periodic access review and recertification; ability to balance functional enablement and business agility with strong governance, data protection, and compliance requirements.
• Working knowledge of change and release management, incident and problem management, and service management practices, including ticket workflow, prioritization, escalation, root cause analysis, release coordination, and knowledge base development.
• Ability to establish, measure, and report service performance measures for application availability, incident and request resolution, support backlog, release success, integration reliability, and user satisfaction. records retention, and privacy and compliance requirements applicable to higher education.
• Knowledge of software procurement and vendor management, including licensing and subscription models, contract and renewal cycles, service‑level agreements, support escalation paths, product roadmap evaluation, and third‑party security and accessibility review.
• Proficiency in Microsoft ecosystem

Minimum Qualifications:

• Progressively responsible experience at an enterprise level, including responsibility for enterprise software applications and application support services.
• Experience supervising or leading technical staff, including hiring, performance management, and team development.
• Experience with enterprise application implementation, configuration, upgrade, and integration in a complex, multi‑stakeholder organization, including application integrations and promoting adoption of new technologies.
• Experience with application support operations, including incident and request management, escalation, service‑level expectations, and customer communication.
• Experience partnering with functional business owners to gather requirements, document processes, and deliver application solutions that meet business needs.
• Experience in software licensing, and vendor and contract administration.
• Experience applying security, access control, audit, and compliance requirements to enterprise applications and their data.

Additional Considerations:

Additional Considerations:

• Experience supervising multiple enterprise IT or enterprise application units using current enterprise-class systems and software.
• Technology management experience and demonstrated technology proficiency in enterprise‑level software and platforms.
• Experience in higher education, public sector, or another regulated environment, including familiarity with student information systems, learning management systems, enterprise resource planning and administrative systems, constituent relationship management systems, and institutional reporting.
• Experience leading a major enterprise application implementation, migration, consolidation, or modernization effort.
• Experience with integration and automation technologies, including API management, middleware or integration platform as a service, workflow automation, and scripting.
• Experience governing vendor-hosted and SaaS applications, including tenant and environment administration, vendor release‑cycle management, and third‑party security, privacy, and accessibility review.
• Experience with formal project management, business analysis, and service management frameworks.
• Professional certifications such as PMP, ITIL, Agile or Scrum credentials, business analysis credentials, or vendor application administration certifications.