Sr. Director, Software Engineering

Details

• Accelerate Ascension’s journey to transform healthcare for those we serve and those who serve by delivering brand-wide digital experiences powered by people, design, data, AI, and technology.
• Lead engineering teams for multiple strategic digital products, accountable for planning, delivery, quality, reliability, and operations.
• Partner closely with Product, Experience, Architecture, Data, Security, and Program leadership to drive outcomes, roadmaps, and release timelines.
• Own technical design decisions, including functional and non-functional requirements such as scalability, security, performance, and resiliency.
• Communicate engineering and AI vision, strategy, delivery plans, and progress to executive and senior stakeholders.
• Define and execute the AI engineering strategy for digital products, aligned with Ascension’s enterprise AI, data, privacy, and security strategies.
• Lead the design, development, and productionization of AI-enabled solutions, leveraging Generative AI, intelligent search, personalization, and recommendations.
• Establish best practices for LLMOps, including model lifecycle management, prompt engineering, evaluation, monitoring, and retraining.
• Ensure responsible AI practices, including explainability, bias mitigation, data privacy, regulatory compliance (HIPAA, healthcare AI guidance), and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Evaluate and govern AI platforms, tools, and vendors (cloud AI services, open-source frameworks, model providers).
• Lead by example in building high-quality, maintainable, secure, and performant systems using cloud-native and AI-enabled architectures.
• Drive shift-left practices across testing, security, observability, performance, and AI quality evaluation.
• Foster strong peer review, architecture review, and model review cultures.
• Champion reuse of shared platforms, APIs, data products, and AI components.
• Embed DevSecOps, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and automated quality gates across software and AI pipelines.
• Drive a strong SRE and production ownership mindset, including incident response, reliability engineering, and cost optimization.
• Implement metrics-driven product and AI health reporting (availability, latency, quality, model performance, cost, and adoption).
• Contribute to Ascension GMDx–wide engineering and AI strategy, standards, frameworks, and reference architectures.
• Stay current with emerging trends in software engineering, AI, and healthcare technology, translating them into practical solutions.
• Promote experimentation, rapid prototyping, and data-informed decision making.
• Represent Ascension engineering in internal forums and external communities through presentations, demos, and knowledge sharing.
• Build, mentor, and grow high-performing teams of engineering leaders, software engineers, and AI engineers.
• Upskill teams in AI literacy, modern engineering practices, and responsible innovation.
• Drive a culture of curiosity, learning, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Manage budgets, forecasts, and vendor contracts, including AI platforms, tooling, and service providers.
• Evaluate build vs. buy decisions for AI and digital capabilities.

• Curious about technology and AI: Actively explores how emerging technologies and AI can improve patient, clinician, and associate experiences.
• Continuous learner: Invests in ongoing growth for self and teams, especially in rapidly evolving AI and engineering domains.
• Change-ready leader: Navigates ambiguity, drives transformation, and leads teams through technological and organizational change.
• Feedback-driven: Embeds feedback loops in software, AI systems, and leadership practices.
• Self-aware and situationally aware: Balances confidence with humility and sound judgment.
• Positive and resilient: Approaches complex healthcare challenges with optimism and purpose.
• Collaborative: Values teamwork, mentorship, and cross-functional partnership.
• Values-driven: Lives Ascension’s core values of service of the poor, reverence, integrity, wisdom, creativity, and dedication.

• Paid time off (PTO)
• Various health insurance options & wellness plans
• Retirement benefits including employer match plans
• Long-term & short-term disability
• Employee assistance programs (EAP)
• Parental leave & adoption assistance
• Tuition reimbursement

Ascension is a leading non-profit, faith-based national health system made up of over 134,000 associates and 2,600 sites of care, including more than 140 hospitals and 40 senior living communities in 19 states.