Sr Director, Application Engineering

Job description

At Skillsoft, we believe skills fuel growth. Our mission is to empower every organization and every learner to turn constant change into continuous growth. As part of the team, your skills will help organizations understand what skills they have, what they need next, and how to apply them in ways that drive real performance and progress. Location: Driving distance from Boston, MA Skillsoft is seeking an Application Engineering Lead to build, run, and evolve our enterprise application landscape in support of company strategy and business transformation priorities. In this role, you will have the opportunity to be accountable for engineering delivery and operational excellence across a portfolio of front-office, back-office, and employee experience platforms. You will ensure solutions are stable, secure, scalable, and aligned to enterprise process outcomes, while enabling faster delivery, lower cost, and higher quality. As a senior leader within Digital & IT, you will work cross-functionally with Enterprise Business Solutions, Enterprise Architecture, Data / Integration / Automation, PMO, Security, and business stakeholders to convert priorities into measurable business outcomes. You will also lead the adoption of modern engineering practices, AI-enabled development, and application simplification to improve speed, efficiency, and value realization. Key Responsibilities Enterprise Engineering Leadership & Outcome Delivery Own engineering delivery and operational health for the enterprise applications portfolio supporting critical business capabilities and processes Translate approved business solutions into scalable, maintainable engineering execution plans Ensure delivery aligns to business priorities, architecture standards, security requirements, and governance frameworks Partner with PMO and Solutions leaders on prioritization, capacity planning, sequencing, and execution transparency Drive consistent execution that balances run, enhancement, and transformation initiatives Application Operations & Lifecycle Management Lead end-to-end lifecycle management, including build, release, operate, enhance, and retire Ensure high availability, reliability, and performance of production systems Oversee incident, problem, and change management processes Maintain a strong focus on operational resilience, uptime, and business continuity Drive structured lifecycle planning including upgrades, patching, and decommissioning of legacy systems Simplification, Automation & AI-Enabled Engineering Reduce application complexity through rationalization, standardization, and modernization Drive adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices to improve productivity, quality, and cycle time Enable automation-first delivery across testing, deployment, and operational processes Partner across teams to streamline workflows, reduce manual effort, and lower total cost of ownership Identify and scale opportunities for AI and automation within enterprise applications in a controlled manner Governance, Risk & Compliance Ensure adherence to enterprise architecture, security, and engineering standards Support compliance requirements including audit readiness (e.g., SOX where applicable) Maintain disciplined release, change, and environment controls Ensure solutions are well-documented, testable, and supportable Partner with Security and Risk teams to proactively mitigate technical and operational risks People Leadership & Capability Development Build and lead a high-performing, modern engineering organization Develop a skills-based team with strong capabilities across platforms, automation, quality, and AI Define clear roles, responsibilities, goals, and development plans Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and enterprise thinking Develop tal