Engineering Director - Digital Services (0932)

Job Type: Permanent Exempt: This is an Exempt position excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process, pursuant to the City and County of San Francisco, Charter Section 10.104. It is considered "at will" and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer.  

Position Description
Our goal is to become the source of standards and platforms that allow the City to make services for residents accessible online. This will be achieved through training, support, standardization, shared platforms, and citywide policies. We aim to make platforms the easiest, fastest, most accessible, and most cost-effective way to deliver services to ensure that platforms not only meet the needs of San Franciscans, but also make City staff’s work easier.

You will join the team at a pivotal moment when we face big questions raised by the increasing power of generative AI.  As a small software team serving a huge city, we are excited by the opportunity to use AI tools that scale our impact.  As the stewards of the city’s service-delivery platforms, we see lots of potential to improve resident experience.  At the same time, we also take seriously our responsibility to introduce new technology in ways that earn the public trust.

As we enter this new phase, the Engineering Director will play a crucial role as part of the Chief Digital Services Officer’s senior leadership team.

Responsibilities

Overall scope:

The Engineering Director is responsible for ensuring the technical excellence, stability, and strategic evolution of the City’s digital platforms and services. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Core Platforms & Applications
  • Oversees ongoing development, technical quality, and reliability of SF.gov, its integrations, DAHLIA (the City’s affordable housing portal), 40+ independent permit and grant applications, and supporting infrastructure.
• Innovation & Emerging Technologies
  • Guides the team’s adoption of AI and other emerging technologies, identifying high-impact use cases beyond traditional solutions like chatbots.
• Citywide Technical Leadership
  • Serves as a resource for engineering best practices and evaluating technical proposals from vendors and internal teams.
  • Acts as a Citywide example of modern engineering leadership and a national model for government technology practice.
• Workforce & Policy Influence
  • Supports Citywide hiring of modern engineering disciplines, collaborating with DHR, DT, and other technical teams to update technical classifications.
  • Influences technology policy through participation in COIT subcommittees and other strategic bodies.

Supervision: 

• Supervises and mentors a team of 15+ Engineers, including Engineering Managers
• Assigns projects to engineers, leads recruiting and selection processes for engineering positions, fosters career growth through mentoring, actionable feedback, and coaching a team with a wide range of levels and backgrounds approaches
• Builds and supports an inclusive, high-performing team culture that values diverse perspectives and approaches

Budget:

• Participates in budget development by providing clear justification for staffing, proposals, or initiatives
• Ensures that the Engineering team’s software, contracting, and cloud budgets are used appropriately and provides the CDSO early warning and practical options to mitigate potential cost overruns

Standards:

• Defines and maintains technical standards and best practices for the Digital Services team, expanding these standards citywide
• Ensures quality of engineering work by implementing appropriate testing, code review and pairing practices, and identifying training needs.
• Oversees development of appropriate technical architecture for services
• Collaborates with the DS engineering team to establish infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and socio-technical practices that improve the team’s ability to deliver reliable & useful software
• In collaboration with the City’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) develops policy for security and compliance of applications and ensure that policy is followed within Digital Services and shared/implemented citywide where appropriate
• Analyzes potential technology builds for strategic importance and makes recommendations for engagement, architecture, and success criteria
• Makes procurement recommendations and help develop technology procurement expertise in partner departments

Stakeholders Engagement

• Presents regularly to committees, division heads, and partner department heads and CIOs, as assigned
• Collaborates with CCSF technical leaders to shape a Citywide architectural vision and modern tech stack,
• Partners with other technical teams within SF City Government including large department technology teams plus DataSF and the Department of Technology’s Cloud, Network, Cybersecurity, and Emerging Tech teams.
• Collaborates with the Delivery Director to scope partnership engagements and identify technical opportunities
• Collaborates with technical teams in state and federal governments as appropriate
• Establishes and leads a Community of Practice for modern engineering within City Government
• Works with domain experts and other staff to make architectural decisions
• Helps stakeholders understand when the problem is service or program design, not software

Qualifications

Desirable Qualifications

• Extensive experience developing software products for government agencies or other regulated environments
• Recent experience leading private industry software teams
• Thoughtful perspective on AI coding and implementation, based on direct experience
• Experience managing engineers across multiple projects
• Experience managing engineering managers
• Experience with iterative, user-centered product development
• Experience as part of cross-disciplinary teams
• Strong communication skills – articulate, clear, and transparent
• Experience teaching and leading development of modern engineering practice

Minimum Qualifications

Education: 
Possession of a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university 

Experience: Five (5) years of professional experience in developing mission-critical software, of which 3 years must include experience supervising professionals 

Substitution: Additional experience as described may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis. One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units/forty-five (45) quarter units.

Additional Information

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

• Interested candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible, as this job announcement will close on Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 11:59PM. 
• Late or incomplete submissions will not be considered. Mailed, hand delivered or faxed documents/applications will not be accepted. 
• Your application MUST include a cover letter.  To upload the cover letter, please attach using the "additional attachments" function.
• For questions or inquiries, please contact: Connie Poon, Senior Human Resources Analyst at Connie.Poon@sfgov.org 

Verification: Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point in the application and/or departmental selection process. Written verification (proof) of qualifying experience must verify that the applicant meets the minimum qualifications stated on the announcement. Written verification must be submitted on employer’s official letterhead, specifying name of employee, dates of employment, types of employment (part-time/full-time), job title(s), description of duties performed, and the verification must be signed by the employer. City employees will receive credit for the duties of the class to which they are appointed. Credit for experience obtained outside of the employee’s class will be allowed only if recorded in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Service Commission Rules. Experience claimed in self-employment must be supported by documents verifying income, earnings, business license and experience comparable to the minimum qualifications of the position. Copies of income tax papers or other documents listing occupations and total earnings must be submitted. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at http://sfdhr.org/index.aspx?page=456.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco. 
Applications will be screened for relevant qualifying experience. Additional screening mechanisms may be implemented in order to determine candidates’ qualifications. Only those applicants who most closely meet the needs of the Agency will be invited to participate in the selection process. Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to the interview. Qualified applicants with disabilities requiring reasonable accommodation in the selection process must contact the Agency by phone at (415) 554-1700 or, if hearing impaired at (415) 554-1700 (TTY).

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.