VP of Core Systems & Platform Innovation

Cengage Group; Little Rock (AR); On-site; USD 193,000 - 308,000; Full time

Job summary

Cengage Group seeks a visionary Vice President, Core Systems within Product Technology to lead shared technology capabilities that scale digital products across markets. You will build and modernize core services, align with product, security, and legal teams, and drive a build-once, scale-everywhere strategy.

You will mentor distributed engineering teams, champion AI-enabled development, and deliver reliable, compliant platforms with strong operational discipline for learners, instructors,

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software or enterprise technology leadership.
• 8+ years leading distributed engineering teams.
• Experience defining platform or shared-services strategies across complex product portfolios.
• Experience running high-availability enterprise systems with reliability targets.
• Experience leading AI-enabled product platforms, learning analytics, or enterprise data capabilities.
• Experience modernizing legacy platforms into cloud-native architectures.
• Demonstrated success consolidating and simplifying to reduce technical debt and cost.
• Experience managing budgets, vendor relationships, and platform investments.

Responsibilities

• Own the technology strategy, roadmap, and operating model for the core systems in support of the Product Technology strategy and enterprise priorities.
• Advance the build-once, scale-everywhere strategy by creating reusable capabilities that improve scalability and speed to market.
• Drive modernization of Core Systems through AI, cloud-native architectures, API-first integration, and retirement of legacy capabilities.
• Establish shared AI infrastructure, data, and platform services enabling smart learning experiences.
• Partner with product and business leaders to drive adoption while tailoring experiences for each market.
• Drive operational excellence through engineering practices, CI/CD, observability, and incident management; mentor leaders.
• Evaluate build, buy, and partner options for Core Systems with cost transparency and ROI focus.

Skills

Software leadership

Senior engineering leadership

Platform strategy

AI-enabled platforms

Cloud-native modernization

Budget & vendor mgmt

Executive communication

Leadership of leaders

Job description

Cengage Group seeks a visionary Vice President, Core Systems within Product Technology to lead shared technology capabilities that scale digital products across markets. You will build and modernize core services, align with product, security, and legal teams, and drive a build-once, scale-everywhere strategy.

You will mentor distributed engineering teams, champion AI-enabled development, and deliver reliable, compliant platforms with strong operational discipline for learners, instructors,