Motorola Solutions

Director of Software Engineering

Chicago, IL Full time

Company Overview

At Motorola Solutions, we believe that everything starts with our people. We’re a global close-knit community, united by the relentless pursuit to help keep people safer everywhere. We build and connect technologies to help protect people, property and places. Our solutions foster the collaboration that’s critical for safer communities, safer schools, safer hospitals, safer businesses, and ultimately, safer nations. Connect with a career that matters, and help us build a safer future.


Department Overview

The Response & Reporting engineering organization does not simply develop software; we architect the operational intelligence engines that secure communities worldwide. We build and maintain the mission-critical platforms used by public safety agencies to orchestrate live incident command, manage massive ecosystems of digital evidence, process electronic records, and drive real-time crime analytics. When seconds matter, our code is the operational backbone for first responders.


Job Description

As the Director of Software Engineering, you will own the development, operational resilience, and modernization of a premier software product line built for public safety agencies. Lives depend on the reliability of our systems. Your primary mandate is uncompromising engineering excellence, product quality, and system reliability to ensure flawless, mission-critical performance.


You will operate as the technical executive for this product, leading a global engineering organization. You are responsible for defining the architectural vision, enforcing rigorous Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) standards, and driving execution across the software development lifecycle.
 

Core Responsibilities

  • Technical Leadership & Execution: Direct the engineering strategy, architecture, and delivery of mission-critical CAD and RMS systems. Drive modernization across cloud connectivity, observability, security, and AI-assisted development without compromising legacy stability.

  • Uncompromising Quality & SRE: Define and enforce rigorous quality assurance and SRE practices. You own the uptime. You must ensure high availability, fault tolerance, and secure deployments across complex on-premise, virtualized, and hybrid environments (Windows Server, SQL, advanced networking).

  • Operational Incident Command: Serve as the authoritative technical voice during high-stakes P1 incidents. You must be capable of commanding a room, managing executive escalations, and directing forward-deployed engineering talent during critical deployments and production outages.

  • Customer-Facing Authority: Build absolute trust with public safety executives. Communicate complex technical realities with clarity, poise, and extreme accountability, both in routine planning and under pressure.

  • Organizational Scaling: Mentor and elevate a high-performing team of engineering managers and developers. Ruthlessly raise the bar for technical competence, coding standards, and operational discipline.
     

Required Knowledge/Skills:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent discipline.

  • 10+ years of industry software engineering and architectural experience, specifically building and scaling large, complex enterprise systems.

  • 5+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, managing managers and driving cross-functional development teams.

  • Deep technical expertise in deploying and maintaining commercially available software in highly restricted, secure, and demanding real-world environments.

  • Must be able to obtain background clearance as required by government customers.
     

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Proven track record of designing, delivering, and operating large-scale, mission-critical software systems (e.g., healthcare, aviation, financial tech, or public safety).

  • Expert-level understanding of both on-premise and cloud-native software architectures, with a history of successfully migrating or bridging legacy systems.

  • Strong background in SRE, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and advanced observability platforms.
     

This position is subject to working in high-security areas governed by the US Department of Justice's "Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy." Therefore, it requires successfully passing a stringent fingerprint background check administered by Motorola Solutions Inc. customers.

We will be accepting applications between 5/4/2026 and 7/10/2026.
 

Target Base Salary Range: $170,000 - $200,000 USD. 

Consistent with Motorola Solutions values and applicable law, we provide the following information to promote pay transparency and equity. Pay within this range varies and depends on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The actual offer will be based on the individual candidate.

#LI-RS1


Basic Requirements

  • Bachelors Degree

  • 10+ years of Software Engineering experience including 5+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience.

  • Must be able to obtain background clearance as required by government customer


Travel Requirements

Under 10%


Relocation Provided

None


Position Type

Experienced


Referral Payment Plan

Yes

Our U.S. Benefits include:

  • Incentive Bonus Plans

  • Medical, Dental, Vision benefits

  • 401K with Company Match

  • 10 Paid Holidays

  • Generous Paid Time Off Packages

  • Employee Stock Purchase Plan

  • Paid Parental & Family Leave

  • and more!


EEO Statement

Motorola Solutions is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally-protected characteristic. 

We are proud of our people-first and community-focused culture, empowering every Motorolan to be their most authentic self and to do their best work to deliver on the promise of a safer world. If you’d like to join our team but feel that you don’t quite meet all of the preferred skills, we’d still love to hear why you think you’d be a great addition to our team.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruiting experience for candidates with disabilities, or other physical or mental health conditions. To request an accommodation, please complete this Reasonable Accommodations Form so we can assist you.