VP, Software Engineering - Core Systems

Cengage Group; Minneapolis (MN); On-site; USD 193,000 - 308,000; Full time

Job summary

Cengage Group is seeking a visionary leader to head Core Systems within Product Technology in the Digital organization. You will guide a distributed team, drive modernization using AI, cloud-native architecture, and API-first design, and align with product and business leaders to scale solutions across markets.

You will foster high performance, implement rigorous engineering practices, and ensure data protection and reliability while delivering impactful, learning-focused experiences for

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software or enterprise technology experience with leadership of shared services or platform teams.
• 8+ years in senior engineering leadership, directing leaders across multiple domains and time zones.
• Experience defining platform or shared-services strategies across complex product portfolios.
• Proven ability to run high-availability enterprise systems with reliability targets and incident management.
• Leadership in AI-enabled product platforms, personalization, or analytics.
• Track record modernizing legacy systems into cloud-native architectures.
• Experience with budgets, vendor relationships, and portfolio cost optimization.
• Excellent executive communication to align senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own technology strategy, roadmap, and operating model for core systems supporting Product Technology.
• Improve scalability by building reusable capabilities and automated delivery.
• Modernize Core Systems with AI, cloud-native design, API-first integration, and service simplification.
• Create shared AI infra, data, retrieval, observability, and platform services for learning products.
• Collaborate with product and business leaders to drive adoption of shared capabilities while tailoring for markets.
• Lead engineering leadership team, develop talent, and promote disciplined software delivery and security.
• Evaluate build/buy/partner options and provide transparency on costs and reliability.

Skills

Executive leadership

Distributed teams

Platform strategy

Cloud-native architecture

AI-enabled platforms

Budget management

Executive communication

Talent development

Job description

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping learners around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.

What you'll do here:

As Vice President, Core Systems within Product Technology in the Digital organization, you will lead the organization responsible for shared technology capabilities that enable Cengage’s digital products to scale across multiple markets and future verticals.

This role serves as a critical member of Digital Technology leadership team, partnering closely with leaders across Higher Education, School, English Language Learning and Work. You will guide teams dedicated to shared core capabilities and advance Cengage’s Core Systems strategy. You will build, buy oar partner to implement reusable capabilities once and scale them across vertical solutions. Business units will tailor the last mile for their specific markets and customers.

You will partner closely with teams in Digital Product, Technology, DevOps, Information Security, IT operations to modernize our technology ecosystem, reduce platform complexity, improve reliability, accelerate delivery, and enable AI-powered learning experiences for learners, instructors, institutions, and workforce customers.

You are a collaborative and pragmatic technology leader. You can build high-performing distributed teams and lead sophisticated modernization work. You operate effectively across product, platform, content, and key collaborators. You are expected to use data, customer insight, engineering judgment, and operational metrics to prioritize work and improve outcomes for learners, instructors, internal teams, and business partners.

Responsibilities

• Own the technology strategy, roadmap, and operating model for the core systems in support of the Product Technology strategy and Cengage’s enterprise product priorities.

• Advance the “build once, scale everywhere” strategy by creating reusable capabilities that improve scalability, reduce duplication, increase consistency, and accelerate speed to market.

• Drive modernization of Core Systems through generative AI technologies, cloud-native architecture, API-first integration, service simplification, automation, observability, and retirement or consolidation of legacy capabilities. Lead consolidation efforts across technology domains, including search and discovery, entitlements and license management, assessment services, data platforms, and other shared capabilities.

• Establish shared AI infrastructure, data, retrieval, observability, safety, and platform services that enable product teams to create smart, adaptive learning experiences responsibly and efficiently.

• Partner with product and business leaders to increase the adoption of shared capabilities, while ensuring each business unit can tailor experiences for its market needs. Partner with Security, Privacy, Legal, and Compliance teams to ensure Core Systems support data protection, retention, obfuscation, auditability, academic integrity, and global privacy requirements.

• Drive operational excellence through strong engineering practices, automation, CI/CD, observability, incident management, workload forecasting, and service level agreements. Build, develop, and mentor a high-performing engineering leadership team, with talent pipelines and succession plans, fostering accountability, transparency, technical excellence, inclusion, and continuous improvement. Champion modern software delivery practices, AI-enabled development workflows, test automation, secure development, and disciplined portfolio execution.

• Evaluate and recommend build, buy, and partner options for Core Systems capabilities, balancing strategic differentiation, cost, speed, risk, interoperability, and long-term ownership. Create financial and operational transparency for shared services, including cost allocation, platform usage, product-level cost visibility, reliability metrics, and Core Systems investment tradeoffs.

Skills you will need here

Required

• 15+ years of software, platform, or enterprise technology experience, including substantial leadership of shared services or platform engineering organizations.

• 8+ years of senior engineering leadership experience, including leading leaders and geographically distributed teams across multiple domains, systems, and time zones.

• Experience defining and executing platform or shared-services strategies across complex product portfolios

• Experience running high-availability enterprise systems with clear reliability targets, incident management practices, oversight of system performance, and service-level accountability.

• Experience leading AI-enabled product platforms, personalization services, intelligent search, learning analytics, or enterprise data capabilities.

• Experience modernizing legacy platforms, monolithic systems, and fragmented technology ecosystems into scalable, cloud-native, modular architectures.

• Demonstrated success leading consolidation and simplification efforts that reduce technical debt, operational burden, platform duplication, and cost.

• Experience managing budgets, vendor relationships, platform investment tradeoffs, and cost optimization within a large-scale technology portfolio.

• Excellent executive communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders, align senior leaders, and make complex technology strategy understandable.

• Strong organizational leadership skills, including talent development, succession planning, culture building, performance management, and leadership of leaders.

Preferred

• Experience in education technology, digital learning platforms, publishing, content platforms, assessment platforms, or other sophisticated digital product ecosystems.

• Deep understanding of cloud-native engineering practices, including AWS, data platforms, AI infrastructure, retrieval-augmented generation, responsible AI controls, security, privacy, auditability, and operational monitoring, event-driven architecture, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, automated testing, and observability.

Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws.

Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at [e-mail] .

About Cengage

Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.

Compensation

At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here (https://www.cengagegroup.com/news/perspectives/2024/cengage-group-total-rewards-philosophy/) to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy .

The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location. Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range.

In this position, you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program. This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below.

35% Annual: Individual Target

$192,500.00 - $308,000.00 USD