PURPOSE
The Director of Applied Innovation leads the team that builds, deploys, and runs Central Valley Ag's custom business applications - products such as RouteForge and Gravis, the grower portal, and the applications that follow them. This is a working leadership role. The Director sets direction, develops the team, and also writes code, reviews it, and carries the hardest problems personally.
The team is small on purpose and fast on purpose. It uses AI-assisted development as a normal part of how work gets done, and it is measured on working software in the hands of CVA employees and growers - not on documents, roadmaps, or demonstrations. The Director is accountable for the availability of every application in the portfolio, for the experience of the people who use them, and for equipping CVA's support organization to carry routine support over time.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of two: an Applied Innovation Engineer and an Applied Innovation Analyst. Hire into the team as it grows.
• Personally design, develop, and review application code. This position ships.
• Own the application portfolio roadmap. Run intake with business leaders, set priorities against business value, and decide what the team will not build.
• Establish and hold a delivery cadence that puts usable software in front of users in weeks rather than quarters, and report against it.
• Own production availability for the portfolio: deployment, release management, monitoring, and incident response.
• Establish and enforce engineering practice - version control, testing, code review, release and change management, and documentation.
• Establish the team's AI-assisted development practice: tooling, review standards, guardrails, and the appropriate handling of company and customer data.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture so that applications conform to CVA's architecture, integration, and data standards.
• Partner with IT Infrastructure and IT Security on hosting, identity, access management, and secure development practice.
• Equip CVA's support organization to support business applications: build the documentation, runbooks, training, and knowledge transfer that let tier 1 and tier 2 support be carried outside this team. Serve as the escalation point.
• Hold the boundary with the data organization: Applied Innovation builds the operational applications that run the business, while tools and agents whose purpose is answering questions from CVA's data belong to the Director of Data & AI Enablement. Partner with that team rather than duplicating it.
• Manage vendor relationships, cloud spend, and licensing for the application portfolio.
• Report delivery, risk, and portfolio health to the Chief Technology Officer and to business leadership.
• Other duties as assigned.
SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
Directly supervises two positions: Applied Innovation Engineer and Applied Innovation Analyst. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with Central Valley Ag policies and applicable laws, including interviewing and hiring, planning and assigning work, coaching and performance management, and addressing employee concerns.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
All work product created in the course of employment with Central Valley Ag Cooperative - including software, source code, applications, integrations, data models, reports, documentation, designs, processes, analyses, inventions, and any other developments, whether created during or outside normal working hours and whether or not created using CVA equipment - is the sole and exclusive property of Central Valley Ag Cooperative. Employment in this position is contingent upon agreement to CVA's confidentiality, intellectual property, and non-disclosure terms.
QUALIFICATIONS
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
• Seven or more years building and supporting business software, including substantial time in a hands-on engineering role.
• Demonstrated leadership of a team, a product, or a significant delivery effort. Formal management experience is not required where the leadership track record is clear.
REQUIRED SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE
• Hands-on proficiency with a modern application stack - for example TypeScript/JavaScript with React or Next.js, C#, or Python - and with relational databases and SQL.
• Cloud application delivery: deployment, application hosting, identity and authentication, secrets management, monitoring, and cost control (AWS and/or Microsoft Azure).
• System and data integration: APIs, file interfaces, and integration with ERP or third-party platforms.
• Judgment on scope. Able to decide what not to build and to ship a narrow first version that earns the next one.
• Strong written and verbal communication with non-technical stakeholders. Able to run an intake conversation with a business leader and leave it with a decision.
• Demonstrated ownership of production systems, including release management and incident response.
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
• Bachelor's degree in a technology-related field such as computer science, computer information systems, or management information systems.
• Working fluency with AI-assisted development - coding agents and assistants, prompt-driven development, and reviewing AI-generated code to the same standard as hand-written code. This is how the team works. Strong engineers without this experience who are eager to adopt it will be considered.
• Experience in agriculture, commodities, logistics, or a cooperative.
• Experience establishing or turning around a small delivery team.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to:
• Sit and stand for extended periods of time.
• Use hands and fingers with dexterity to operate a computer keyboard and mouse.
• Occasionally lift and transport computer equipment and peripherals.
• Be available for occasional after-hours work in support of deployments and production issues.
• This position may be based at any Central Valley Ag location or worked remotely. Periodic travel to CVA locations is expected for user engagement, onboarding, and team meetings.
