Director, Software

BlueCrest Inc; Beaver Brook (CT); On-site; USD 170,000 - 196,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

401(k) retirement plans

Wellness programs

Job summary

BlueCrest Inc. seeks a Director, Software to own the growth plan for enterprise software, translating long‑range ambition into a practical, multi‑year roadmap that protects current software revenue while expanding recurring offerings.

You will lead cross‑functional governance with engineering, Sales, and Marketing, shape AI‑enabled, cloud, and data strategies, and build partnerships and acquisitions to accelerate credible, measurable growth.

Qualifications

• Extensive leadership in enterprise software, product strategy, and software growth.
• Strong ability to translate market opportunities into actionable plans.
• Experience with recurring-revenue models and SaaS transformations.

Responsibilities

• Lead the annual and multi-year software growth planning process.
• Define strategic logic, customers, value proposition, and commercial models for major initiatives.
• Develop business cases and governance for core vs modernized offerings.
• Partner with Marketing and Sales to sharpen segmentation, pricing, and launch plans.
• Coordinate portfolio priorities with engineering and other stakeholders.

Skills

Enterprise software

Strategic planning

P&L ownership

SaaS growth

AI awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree

Job description

BlueCrest is a global, innovative leader in enterprise print, mail and customer communications. Our products include printers, inserters, and sorters and a renewed commitment to innovative software and vote-by-mail solutions. We are proud to be an industry and market leader in the mail space.

Although our manufacturing headquarters is based in Danbury, Connecticut, we are a global company with clients and team members in over 15 countries worldwide, including an expansive field service team comprised of over eight-hundred specialized field service technicians. Advancing our clients' operations to meet the demands of the future takes a great team and hard work.

We move quickly to creatively solve problems and implement change. Most of all we cherish our role as a trusted and innovative technology partner. We provide a supportive and inclusive working environment for employees where individuals can thrive, and teams can flourish.

Our BlueCrest culture is reflected by our core behaviors: Innovation, Collaboration, Accountability, Resourcefulness and Enthusiasm (ICARE). It is with these behaviors in mind that we approach every customer, every idea, every product, and every employee, every day.

It is the essence of how we interact and work. It's how things get done at BlueCrest.

Job Description

Position Summary

The Director, Software is a P&L owner that will define and execute the software growth agenda for BlueCrest. This leader will translate the long-range software ambition into an actionable growth plan that protects and modernizes the core software business while expanding recurring revenue through workflow automation, cloud-enabled services, AI-enabled solutions, data-driven offerings, OEM relationships, and strategic partnerships.

This is a business unit leadership role with a revenue target to meet. This position requires an experienced software and business leader who can connect market opportunities, client needs, portfolio strategy, engineering capacity, commercial models, investment priorities, and grow the software business. The role will create the planning discipline, cross-functional alignment, and executive visibility needed to move company-wide software initiatives from concept to measurable business outcomes.

Primary Objectives

• Own the development and ongoing refinement of the company’s software growth plan, including strategic priorities, phased roadmaps, growth initiatives, investment requirements, dependencies, milestones, risks, and expected business outcomes.
• Protect and strengthen BlueCrest’s existing software business while identifying scalable growth opportunities beyond the company’s traditional software domain.
• Create an integrated portfolio view that links customer value, market attractiveness, competitive differentiation, technical feasibility, recurring-revenue potential, and financial return.
• Accelerate expansion into workflow automation, intelligent orchestration, cloud-enabled services, data-driven operations, AI-enabled offerings, and adjacent markets.
• Help engineering teams increase focus on next-generation development by identifying opportunities to simplify the portfolio, rationalize legacy functionality, reduce duplication, and leverage AI-enabled development tools and automation.
• Build a qualified pipeline of organic, OEM, partnership, and acquisition-led growth opportunities and establish clear evaluation criteria for build, buy, partner, or retire decisions.
• Identify practical near-term wins that build momentum while maintaining a disciplined path toward Bluecrest strategic and financial objectives.

Key Responsibilities

1. Software Growth Planning

• Lead the annual and multi-year software growth planning process, converting enterprise strategy into a prioritized portfolio of initiatives and a sequenced execution roadmap.
• Define the strategic logic, target customers, value proposition, route to market, commercial model, capability requirements, investment needs, and success measures for each major growth initiative.
• Develop initiative charters and business cases that distinguish core-business protection, modernization, adjacent growth, and transformational bets.
• Establish planning assumptions and scenarios for recurring revenue, SaaS migration, installed-base conversion, attach rates, pricing, retention, and new-market expansion in partnership with Finance and commercial leaders.
• Create an executive software growth dashboard and regular operating reviews that track milestones, revenue indicators, investment, delivery risks, customer validation, and decisions required.
• Maintain a transparent portfolio backlog and decision calendar so resources can be redirected toward the highest-value opportunities as market evidence changes.
• Assess portfolio performance, strategic fit, customer relevance, lifecycle position, technical health, and economic contribution across the software estate.
• Develop recommendations to invest, modernize, consolidate, partner, maintain, or retire products and capabilities.
• Define product-line strategies and roadmaps that balance customer commitments, installed-base continuity, cybersecurity, platform modernization, and growth.
• Coordinate portfolio priorities with peer Software LOB leaders to reduce fragmentation and improve reuse of shared platforms, data, APIs, workflow components, and commercial capabilities.
• Partner with Marketing and Sales to sharpen segmentation, positioning, packaging, pricing, and launch plans for priority software offers.

3. Workflow, Cloud, Data & AI Strategy

• Identify opportunities to expand BlueCrest’s software portfolio into adjacent workflow, automation, intelligent orchestration, and operational data domains.
• Define practical AI product strategies that create measurable client value, improve operational performance, and strengthen differentiation.
• Explore cloud and hybrid delivery models that support modernization, scalability, faster innovation, and recurring-revenue growth while recognizing the realities of mission-critical client environments.
• Work with Engineering and Professional Services to identify reusable capabilities and simplify custom or fragmented solution patterns.
• Partner with Engineering to identify legacy complexity, duplicate functionality, architectural constraints, technical debt, and modernization opportunities that affect growth capacity.
• Help prioritize rationalization and platform investments that create engineering bandwidth for next-generation development.
• Evaluate how AI-assisted development, test automation, DevOps practices, shared services, and common platforms can improve speed, quality, and reuse.
• Ensure growth plans incorporate realistic technical dependencies, resourcing needs, cybersecurity considerations, and migration paths.

5. Strategic Partnerships, OEMs & Corporate Development

• Develop and strengthen OEM software relationships, technology alliances, integration partnerships, and channel opportunities that extend BlueCrest’s reach and capabilities.
• Create structured partner strategies covering strategic fit, customer value, economics, differentiation, integration requirements, governance, and risk.
• Evaluate potential acquisition targets and partnership opportunities aligned with the Lighthouse 2030 software growth thesis.
• Lead or support commercial and technical diligence, pilot design, negotiation inputs, integration planning, and post-decision value realization.

6. Commercial & Client Engagement

• Engage directly with major accounts, operations leaders, CIOs, and technology organizations to understand future workflow, automation, data, and software needs.
• Use structured voice-of-customer and market validation to test growth hypotheses before significant investment.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, and Strategic Accounts to develop lighthouse customers, pilots, reference cases, and repeatable go-to-market motions.
• Help shape subscription, SaaS, usage-based, data-driven, managed-service, and AI-enabled commercial models while protecting and strengthening existing software revenue.
• Support enablement of materials and executive narratives that clearly connect software capabilities to customer outcomes and measurable value.

7. Cross-Functional Governance & Leadership

• Facilitate cross-functional alignment among PLM, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, Strategic Accounts, Finance, IT, Legal, and external partners.
• Prepare concise, decision-ready recommendations for senior leadership, including trade-offs, resource implications, financial logic, risks, and required decisions.
• Create accountability across initiative owners without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Promote a disciplined test-and-learn culture that combines urgency with evidence-based investment decisions.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate combines deep enterprise software understanding with strong strategic, commercial, and operational judgment. The individual must be able to navigate a mature installed base and long product lifecycles while creating a credible path to modern, scalable growth. Success requires an action-oriented leader who can move comfortably between executive strategy, customer discovery, portfolio economics, technical trade-offs, partnership development, and execution governance.

Base Salary starting at $170K DOE, Bonus Eligible

Qualifications

Qualifications & Experience

• Extensive leadership experience in enterprise software, product line management, software strategy, workflow automation, SaaS, cloud services, digital platforms, or related technology businesses.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing growth strategies, multi-year product or portfolio roadmaps, and investment cases.
• Strong understanding of recurring-revenue models, software economics, pricing and packaging, retention, customer expansion, and go-to-market execution.
• Experience working with mature platforms, large installed bases, legacy modernization, integrations, and long-lifecycle enterprise environments.
• Working knowledge of AI-enabled technologies, data platforms, workflow orchestration, cloud and hybrid architectures, APIs, cybersecurity, and modern software delivery practices.
• Experience evaluating build-vs-buy decisions, OEM relationships, strategic partnerships, and potential acquisitions.
• Ability to translate complex market, customer, financial, and technical information into clear executive recommendations and practical action plans.
• Strong influence, facilitation, and communication skills, with the ability to align diverse stakeholders without direct authority.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, computer science, or related field required; advanced degree preferred.

Leadership Attributes

• Strategic and commercially minded, with a bias toward measurable outcomes.
• Customer-centered and externally oriented, with curiosity about adjacent markets and emerging business models.
• Pragmatic about modernization in complex, mission-critical environments.
• Comfortable challenging assumptions constructively while remaining collaborative and respectful.
• Able to create clarity from ambiguity and convert long-range ambition into sequenced execution.
• Credible with executives, clients, engineers, product leaders, commercial teams, and partners.
• Disciplined in prioritization, follow-through, and transparent communication.

Anticipated Close Date

Feb 28, 2027

EEO Statement

BlueCrest is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to developing and retaining an inclusive workforce around the globe, free of unlawful discrimination, harassment and retaliation. We provide equal employment opportunities to all persons without regard to race, ethnicity, creed, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, marital or familial status, genetics, pregnancy, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic for which discrimination is prohibited by law

Compensation

170000

As a leading provider of enterprise print, mail, and customer communications solutions, BlueCrest, Inc. is committed to its employees. This commitment is embodied in our competitive benefits package, which includes medical, dental, and vision coverage, as well as flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability income, 401(k) Savings Plans, and employee assistance and wellness programs.