Director of Research and Development (Ashburn)

We're looking for a Director of Research & Development to lead the modernization and expansion of our software products for the alternative financial services industry. This is a hands-on leadership role that merges software engineering expertise with forward-thinking AI integration and rapid product innovation.

As Director of R&D, you will manage a talented engineering team and collaborate closely with our Product Manager and Operations teams. Youll take ownership of delivering modern, scalable softwarewhile embedding cutting-edge AI technologies into our workflows, user experience, and development process.

What You'll Do

Full-Stack Leadership

• Take technical ownership across the entire stack: APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, frontend apps, and internal tools.
• Promote best practices in testing, observability, documentation , and code quality .
• Ensure platform reliability and performance across services, products, and AI components.

Team Management & Mentorship

• Lead and grow a cross-functional engineering team with a strong culture of innovation, delivery, and continuous learning.
• Mentor developers in AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor) and encourage experimentation to increase team productivity.
• Support individual and team performance through feedback, pairing, code reviews, and professional development.

AI-Driven Innovation & Product Development

• Design, build, and deploy AI-powered features across the platformincluding agent-based workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), predictive tools, and automated decision systems.
• Drive the rapid prototyping of new features, turning ideas into working proof-of-concepts in days and production-ready tools in weeks.
• Apply LLMs and AI orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex) to real-world problems like compliance automation, document analysis, and fraud prevention.
• Lead platform modernization by refactoring legacy components and building scalable cloud-native services.

Cross-Functional Execution

• Work in close partnership with Product Management and Operations to align development work with customer needs and business priorities.
• Communicate technical vision and architectural decisions across departments.

• Bring a pragmatic approach to balancing innovation, speed, and technical debt

What You Bring

• 5+ years of experience leading software engineering or R&D teams, ideally in SaaS or fintech environments.
• Proven success delivering production-ready, customer-facing software across the full stackfrom backend services to web frontends.
• Strong architectural skills and comfort with modern cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and DevOps workflows.
• Experience applying AI or automation tools to enhance product features or streamline development workflows.
• Familiarity with emerging AI/LLM frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex) and enthusiasm for exploring how they can support product innovation.
• A track record of rapid iteration: launching prototypes quickly, gathering feedback, and refining based on real-world use.
• A leadership style grounded in mentorship, collaboration, and elevating team performance.

• Strong communication and project management skillsable to align cross-functional stakeholders and keep teams focused

Bonus Points

• Experience revamping or re-platforming legacy systems into modern microservice or serverless architectures.
• Understanding of compliance and regulatory demands in financial software or MSBs .
• Background in intelligent automation, ML ops, or AI infrastructure.

Why This Role Matters

This role is central to how we design, build, and scale our software platform. As Director of R&D, youll lead the engineering team responsible for delivering the features, systems, and tools that power our products and support our customers. Your work will directly influence product quality, development velocity, and the overall experience we deliver to the financial services industry.

From modernizing core systems to guiding the next phase of platform growth, your leadership will shape the future of our technology and the success of the teams behind it.