Senior Director, Software Engineering

Job Description

Provides application development leadership for the implementation of key technology initiatives that drive Marriott International's GraphQL Platform strategy in a fast-paced, mission critical environment. This role will be responsible for building and advancing Marriott's platform in alignment with our core business objectives and enterprise architecture principles.

Fosters innovation and manages the application development team with a focus on promoting customer satisfaction. Collaborates with other technology leaders, business partners and promotes agile application development practices and processes across the enterprise. Establishes and manages continuous improvement efforts in technical project management, software engineering & testing automation to improve quality, scalability, and adoption of Marriott's API platform.

Candidate Profile

Education and Experience

Required:

• 10+ years of application development leadership experience
• 5+ years of experience with distributed architectural frameworks and the various approaches to the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) like agile development methodologies.
• Experience with technologies GraphQL, Node.js, Typescript, Java, NoSQL, Spring boot, Kafka, Docker, K8s, Cloud
• Experience with defining and executing the enterprise GraphQL platform strategy and roadmap
• Experience with leading the design, build, and operation of the GraphQL runtime and federation layer, including Apollo (or similar product) Router/Gateway, traffic management, environment strategy, and platform resiliency to support mission-critical workloads at scale
• Experience with owning the enterprise GraphQL Platform vision and execution, defining the long-term roadmap, operating model, and technical strategy for Apollo GraphQL (federation, routing, governance) to enable scalable, domain-driven API delivery across the enterprise
• Experience embedding security, compliance, and cost controls into the platform by design, including authorization patterns, query complexity management, rate limiting, data access policies, and secure defaults aligned with enterprise risk standards
• Prior experience driving reliability, performance, observability, and real-time analytics as first-class platform capabilities, defining SLIs/SLOs, enabling deep telemetry, and leading incident management, capacity planning, and continuous performance optimization.
• Experience or in-depth working knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, logging, metrics, monitoring, tracing, service mesh, LTM, GTM, etc.
• Deep understanding of the pros and cons with cloud-native solution, microservices-architecture and API orchestration architecture
• 5+ years leading innovative, technically complex solutions for business and consumer-facing audiences
• Experience with multiple public cloud platforms like AWS and Azure
• Experience with designing & implementing cloud native solutions
• Strong understanding of API platforms, back-end services, database and networking components of full stack infrastructure
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent

Preferred:

• Experience developing GraphQL APIs using Apollo and REST based APIs
• Experience leveraging micro-services development patterns and principles
• Experience and deep understanding of capabilities (such as orchestration, filtering, sorting etc) that GraphQL vs REST based microservices should be leveraged for.
• Demonstrated success leading medium- to large-scale initiatives/transformations
• Strong experience in platform based approach and building platform for the enterprise to be used across all domains.
• Active contributions to OSS projects
• Relevant technology certifications
• Proven management experience in strategic planning and budgeting within one or more business groups
• Experience with and knowledge of global IT outsourcing activities in a managed services environment
• Proven management experience in application development across waterfall and agile environments.
• Experience transforming mainframe-based applications into modern open system technologies
• Proven success in driving DevOps best practices and capabilities into development teams
• Experience with Automation testing, Performance Engineering, Release Management processes and Application Deployments.
• Working in a Product-based model and building strong partnerships with Product owners by providing innovative technology solutions to complex business problems
• Direct management of complex budgets in excess of $5M annual direct and indirect costs
• Direct management of cross functional, sourced, or matrixed teams
• Experience with DR strategy rollout and Production support of mission critical applications.

Core Work Activities

Managing Application Development Standards, Processes, and Tools

• Works with direct reports to facilitate consistency of service delivery across client groups
• Facilitates compliance with the standard set of application development tools and processes that will drive consistency and predictability throughout the SDLC for all client groups including:
• SDLC standard tools and processes for both waterfall and agile development
• Estimating standard tools and processes, incorporating flexibility for small and large projects
• Deployment standard tools and processes
• Monitors projects for adherence to defined application development processes
• Communicates to Application Development leaders opportunities to create broader IT related and corporate standards and policies where necessary
• Communicates important application development policy changes that affect service provider and/or Marriott operations

Managing Day-To-Day Relationships with Teams

• Manages application development projects in partnership with IT teams, business partners and providers
• Provides project management of business projects
• Oversees effective reporting within application development team
• Leads project reviews with team on application development projects
• Manages day-to-day relationships with all IT teams to promote the delivery of services that meet or exceed the client expectations
• Monitors projects for alignment with defined business case process
• Drives timely resolution of escalated service delivery problems and minimizes the impact of any client service delivery issues
• Manages, and improves service level reporting for application development
• Provides early warning to the appropriate Business Partnership & Planning leaders and team regarding degraded or missed service levels
• Assists with application, development and maintenance of service provider project management standards and tools
• Participates in client portfolio and demand management processes, and engages service providers to ensure client satisfaction
• Works with application development service providers
• Validates the service provider(s) performs the services agreed to by the master services agreement in a manner that is consistent with both the spirit and the letter of the agreement
• Works with team to progress the service providers services to match client needs
• Facilitates team and service provider compliance with the agreement
• Validates service levels meet business needs
• Facilitates the definition and enforcement of good service provider contracts
• Supports the IT organization
• Provides input to IT's business strategy and planning as needed
• Supports and follows defined IT Governance decision rights, standards and practices
• Emphasizes accuracy and effectiveness of estimating and planning management with team
• Provides input to business/discipline and continent IT budgets

Implementing and Managing Continuous Improvement Program

• Drives adoption of CMMi or similar metrics to demonstrate continuous improvement and alignment with the industry
• Demonstrates continuous improvement through metrics of quality consistency and client satisfaction
• Works with application development service providers, IT teams, and business partners to implement continuous improvement activities
• Responds to issues identified in project surveys or other feedback processes, to continually improve client satisfaction

At Marriott International, we are dedicated to being an equal opportunity employer, welcoming all and providing access to opportunity. We actively foster an environment where the unique backgrounds of our associates are valued and celebrated. Our greatest strength lies in the rich blend of culture, talent, and experiences of our associates. We are committed to non-discrimination on any protected basis, including disability, veteran status, or other basis protected by applicable law.