R&D SW Development Director

Summary: VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions for telecommunications, cloud, enterprises, first responders, military, aerospace, and railway. VIAVI is also a leader in light management technologies for 3D sensing, anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, government and aerospace applications. We are the people behind the products that help keep the world connected at home, school, work, at play, and everywhere in between. VIAVI employees are passionate about supporting customer success and we welcome people who bring their best every day to the company - to question, to collaborate and to push for solutions that will delight our customers.

Duties & Responsibilities

Viavi's Automated Mobile Solutions (AMS) Business Unit is seeking a Director of R&D Engineering to lead a global organisation of approximately 200 engineers across the UK, Romania, Colorado and Chennai. This is a high-impact leadership role focused on transforming a complex telecom software portfolio through modern engineering practices, AI-assisted development and strategic platform simplification. We are looking for a senior leader who is equally comfortable in a large-scale enterprise and a fast-moving start-up environment.

What You'll Do

• Lead the evolution of AMS into an AI-enabled engineering organisation.
• Drive adoption of GenAI and agentic development practices across global teams.
• Define engineering strategy, KPIs and operating metrics to improve productivity and delivery performance.
• Simplify and modernise a portfolio spanning Network Assurance, Geolocation and AIOps solutions.
• Lead and develop engineering leaders across multiple international locations.
• Partner with product, commercial and executive stakeholders to align technology investment with business priorities.
• Own delivery excellence, quality, release predictability and cost efficiency.

Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements

You'll bring structure, accountability and operational excellence whilst retaining the energy, resilience and willingness to challenge the status quo and driving change. Most importantly, you'll already be on the AI transformation journey and know how to operationalise AI adoption across an engineering organisation. Not just experiment with it.

What We're Looking For

• 12+ years' software engineering experience with significant leadership responsibility.
• Proven success leading distributed R&D teams of 100+ engineers.
• Track record of driving large-scale engineering transformation.
• Strong software architecture and platform strategy expertise.
• Hands-on experience implementing AI-enabled software development and engineering productivity initiatives.
• Experience building KPIs, measuring outcomes and improving software delivery performance.
• Knowledge of telecom software, network assurance, OSS/BSS, AIOps, NetScout, Amdocs or related domains is highly desirable.

VIAVI Solutions is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer - minorities/females/veterans/persons with disabilities.

VIAVI empowers Service Providers and IT organizations to manage the network lifecycle for complex 5G and Fiber networks with intuitive instruments, systems and technologies; and our expertise in light management and optical coatings help protect the world's bank notes from counterfeiters, enhance the colors you see, and enable advanced technology such as 3D sensing.

We are a team of thought leaders who have the freedom to support and innovate and look for new effective and efficient solutions for our customers.