Senior Director, R&D
Diligent
About Us
Diligent is the AI leader in governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS solutions, helping more than 1 million users and 700,000 board members to clarify risk and elevate governance. The Diligent One Platform gives practitioners, the C-Suite and the board a consolidated view of their entire GRC practice so they can more effectively manage risk, build greater resilience and make better decisions, faster.
Learn more at diligent.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook
The Senior Director, R&D will lead a dynamic and progressive, UK-based engineering organization within Diligent’s Integrity business unit overseeing multiple teams and managers to deliver industry-leading products at scale. This role is accountable for scaling a recently acquired product and building a market - leading platform, as well as translating Diligent’s strategic goals into actionable engineering objectives and ensuring successful execution across a complex, multi-disciplinary portfolio.
In addition to providing visionary software leadership, the Senior Director will be a key partner to Product and Business leadership in setting the long-term vision, strategy, and roadmap for the organization. They will also serve as a senior technical authority — collaborating with Principal Engineers / Architects and other senior technical experts to define technology strategy, shape engineering culture, and drive development excellence across the company.
As part of Diligent’s transformation to an AI-first organization, this leader will embed AI fluency, experimentation, and strategic foresight into the way teams design, build, and deliver technology — as well as identifying opportunities to accelerate innovation, enhance customer experience, and unlock new business value.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide visionary leadership and strategic direction for a newly acquired business within a large, global engineering organization, ensuring alignment with company goals, portfolio strategy, and customer needs.
- Partner closely with Product and business leaders to define the long-term vision, strategy, and roadmap for the organization.
- Translate company objectives into clear, actionable plans for multiple engineering areas and drive their successful delivery.
- Collaborate with Principal Engineers, Distinguished Engineers, and other senior technical leaders to define and execute the technology strategy and ensure technical excellence.
- Track emerging AI trends, tools, and breakthroughs, evaluating their potential impact and integrating them into products, processes, and culture where appropriate.
- Champion AI-first thinking — challenging conventional approaches and introducing novel, AI-based solutions that deliver measurable value.
- Communicate AI concepts clearly and persuasively to technical and non-technical audiences, creating compelling narratives about AI’s role in driving business transformation.
- Foster an AI experimentation mindset — encouraging rapid prototyping, iteration, and continuous learning.
- Overseeing the development of AI products and AI agents.
- Maintain AI risk awareness — identifying potential risks, managing ethical considerations, and ensuring resilience in AI initiatives.
Required Experience / Skills
- 10+ years of experience leading large, multi-disciplinary software engineering organizations, including managing managers and geographically distributed teams.
- Proven track record of delivering complex, high-scale software products, ideally in SaaS and B2B environments.
- Proven track record of delivering technology integrations between different technology stacks and products.
- Demonstrated ability to define and execute long-term technology strategies in partnership with senior technical leaders, including for AI products.
- Strong understanding of emerging technologies, with proven experience applying AI capabilities to solve business and customer challenges.
- Exceptional communication skills, capable of engaging diverse audiences and building consensus around strategic initiatives.
- Financial and operational acumen, including planning and delivering against complex budgets.
- Commitment to customer outcomes, innovation, and creating a culture of excellence in delivery.
- Agile, adaptable, and resilient in a fast-moving, evolving environment.
What Diligent Offers You
- Creativity is ingrained in our culture. We are innovative collaborators by nature. We thrive in exploring how things can be differently both in our internal processes and to help our clients
- We care about our people. Diligent offers a flexible work environment, global days of service, comprehensive health benefits, meeting free days, generous time off policy and wellness programs to name a few
- We have teams all over the world. We may be headquartered in New York City, but we have office hubs in Washington D.C., Vancouver, London, Galway, Budapest, Munich, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Sydney.
- Diversity is important to us. Growing, maintaining and promoting a diverse team is a top priority for us. We foster and encourage diversity through our Employee Resource Groups and provide access to resources and education to support the education of our team, facilitate dialogue, and foster understanding.
Diligent created the modern governance movement. Our world-changing idea is to empower leaders with the technology, insights and connections they need to drive greater impact and accountability – to lead with purpose. Our employees are passionate, smart, and creative people who not only want to help build the software company of the future, but who want to make the world a more sustainable, equitable and better place.
Headquartered in New York, Diligent has offices in Washington D.C., London, Galway, Budapest, Vancouver, Bengaluru, Munich, Singapore and Sydney. To foster strong collaboration and connection, this role will follow a hybrid work model. If you are within a commuting distance to one of our Diligent office locations, you will be expected to work onsite at least 50% of the time. We believe that in-person engagement helps drive innovation, teamwork, and a strong sense of community.
We are a drug free workplace. Diligent is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental disability, age, military status, protected veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer related or HIV/AIDS related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Diligent's EEO Policy and Know Your Rights. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at recruitment@diligent.com.
To all recruitment agencies: Diligent does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Diligent employees or any other organization location. Diligent is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.