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First American · 2 weeks ago

Director of Application Engineering

United States

Full-time

Remote

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$192K/yr - $257K/yr

10+ years exp

First American is a company that has been committed to its people since 1889, fostering an inclusive and innovative work environment. The Director of Application Engineering will provide strategic leadership over application engineering and modernization functions, collaborating with various teams to enhance digital platforms and ensure operational excellence.

Financial ServicesInsuranceProperty InsuranceReal EstateReal Estate Investment

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Define and execute the application sustainment and modernization strategy for 200-250 enterprise and proprietary apps in AWS

Partner with Platform and Operations Directors to align build vs. run ownership models and drive automation-based efficiency gains

Develop and manage quarterly objectives (OKRs) for application engineering aligned to Sentinels’ cost, compliance, and availability targets

Lead engineering participation in app intake, migration readiness, and sustainment transitions

Represent application development at enterprise governance and audit reviews

Lead engineering managers and developers embedded within sustainment and modernization pods

Oversee CI/CD pipelines, version control, and secure deployment frameworks (GitHub Actions, Terraform, Liquibase, etc.)

Drive codebase quality and standardization across legacy and modern app stacks (AngularJS, ReactJS, Python, .NET, C#, COTS customizations, etc.)

Champion reusable modules, IaC patterns, and modernization accelerators (containerization, API gateways, etc.)

Maintain alignment to compliance control library (e.g., code signing, vulnerability scanning, TLS 1.2+)

Partner with the Platform Director on Terraform/IaC integration, AWS architecture, and patch readiness

Work with the Ops Director on incident triage, observability (Kibana/StatusCast/XMatters), and defect management

Collaborate with the Governance Director to ensure code and configuration audit readiness

Contribute to unified dashboards for executive metrics and SLA compliance reporting

Manage 3–4 Engineering Managers and 5–6 onshore application sustainment pods and partner closely with offshore leadership/teams

Establish technical mentorship programs and career paths for engineers and pod leads

Drive culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and automation-first mindset

Support upskilling to drive removal of application SMEs across the portfolio

Ensure incident and change management compliance with divisional tools and procedures

Develop the operational discipline and proactive resiliency strategy to ensure 99.9%+ application availability for sustained apps

Drive toil reduction initiatives across pods

Collaborate on vulnerability remediation, library updates, and secure patching initiatives

Enforce deployment quality gates, rollback validation, and post-release health checks

Qualification

AWSCI/CD toolsApplication modernizationLeadership in hybrid cloudITIL-based service managementIncident/change/release processesStakeholder managementTeam developmentContinuous improvementCommunication skills

Required

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline (Master's preferred)

10+ years of experience leading application development, sustainment, or DevOps teams in enterprise-scale environments

Proven leadership in hybrid cloud (preferably AWS) environments

Strong experience with CI/CD tools (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Terraform, Liquibase) and modern development practices (IaC, containers, microservices)

Solid understanding of ITIL-based service management, incident/change/release processes, and SLAs

Demonstrated success managing hybrid teams (U.S. + offshore) with high performance and collaboration

Excellent communication and stakeholder management across technical and business functions

Preferred

Experience leading teams within a Managed Service Provider or internal shared service model

Hands-on familiarity with legacy modernization (e.g., .NET, SQL Server migrations to AWS RDS, containerization)

Knowledge of security and compliance frameworks (SOX, SOC2, NIST, CIS benchmarks)

Background in application cost optimization and TCO reduction initiatives

Exposure to governance tools (ServiceNow, SailPoint, CMDB, Security Hub)

Benefits

Medical

Dental

Vision

401k

PTO/paid sick leave

Employee stock purchase plan

Company

First American

Glassdoor3.8

First American provides financial services through its Title Insurance and Services segment and its Specialty Insurance segment.

Founded in 1889

Santa Ana, California, USA

10001+ employees

http://www.firstam.com

H1B Sponsorship

First American has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2024 (3)

2023 (2)

2022 (1)

2021 (2)

2020 (5)