Director of R&D

As Director, US R&D, you will build GovCloud-native engineering capability purpose-built to serve US federal customers at the highest classification levels. You will own the migration of a platform to a US Government Cloud environment, build and lead the US engineering team, and serve as the primary technical interface between federal agency customers and a global product and engineering organization. What You'll Do Establish R&D Function Define the structure, processes, and operating model for R&D team. Hire, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of cleared engineers and DevOps practitioners. Integrate the new R&D function with current commercial and business development operations. Partner closely with global R&D leadership to align the US team with the broader engineering roadmap and architecture. Lead the GovCloud Migration Own the end-to-end technical migration of Windward's Maritime AI™ platform to a US GovCloud environment (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, or equivalent). Architect and implement cloud infrastructure that meets FedRAMP, IL4/IL5, CMMC, NIST 800-53, and other applicable federal compliance frameworks. Build and maintain the full DevOps pipeline — CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, container orchestration, observability, and incident response — within a cleared, controlled environment. Ensure the migrated platform meets all security, availability, an [... source excerpt omitted ...] evelopment and technical design to platform features, integrations, and capability enhancements for the US federal market. Maintain, support, and continuously improve the live US production environment, acting as the escalation owner for critical issues. Establish engineering best practices, documentation standards, and operational runbooks for the US environment. Identify opportunities to adapt global platform capabilities to the specific operational and mission requirements of US federal customers. Own the Customer Technical Relationship Serve as the primary technical point of contact for US federal agency customers, owning the relationship from deployment through ongoing op [... source excerpt omitted ...] s, technical leads, and senior agency officials. What Success Looks Like Windward's platform is fully operational in a US GovCloud environment, cleared and compliant for federal production use within the first year. A high-performing, cleared US R&D team is in place and executing at the standard Windward is known for globally. US federal customers experience seamless, secure deployments and feel the Windward team is a true mission partner — not just a vendor. The US R&D function operates as a first-class node in Windward's global engineering organization, contributing capability and insight back to the product. Requirements Agentic-First Mindset Deeply committed to agentic