Director, Engineering Productivity

Director, Engineering Productivity

Toppan Merrill is a global SaaS leader in financial and regulatory compliance solutions, serving the world's most complex and highly regulated industries. We combine cutting-edge technology with deep industry expertise to deliver mission-critical software and services. We are transforming how financial and legal teams collaborate and build trust, and we're looking for leaders to join us on that journey.

We seek a highly experienced Director of Engineering Productivity to drive software excellence across our global product engineering organization. This role will serve as a technical and strategic leader, shaping the developer experience, coding standards, software architecture, and engineering tooling across product engineering.

You will collaborate closely with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and QA teams to create frictionless development environments, enforce high-quality coding practices, and scale engineering operations through best-in-class tools and systems. You will be a change agent and a hands-on technical mentor across globally distributed teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and enforce global coding standards, review practices, and software quality benchmarks.
• Partner with Principal and Staff Engineers across teams to drive consistent architectural patterns, scalable systems design, and technical excellence.
• Partner with Enterprise Architects and other senior technical leaders in technical reviews for critical architectural decisions.
• Design and deliver a cohesive Developer Experience (DevEx) strategy — from local development environments to CI/CD pipelines.
• Streamline workflows and productivity using tools such as Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence, and Jellyfish.
• Improve build times, test automation coverage, onboarding experience, and inner development loops.
• Help increase Developer productivity via training and AI coding tools.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to evaluate engineering productivity, quality, and delivery timelines.
• Oversee the creation and maintenance of dashboards and reporting systems to provide visibility into project status and team performance.
• Own the strategic roadmap for engineering productivity tooling, including evaluation, adoption, and retirement of tools.
• Work closely with Platform Engineering and DevOps to enhance automation, observability, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Evaluate, integrate, and scale tools that drive engineering performance and satisfaction.
• Act as a technical advisor and productivity champion to engineering teams globally.
• Mentor and guide engineers, tech leads, and managers on engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with executive leadership to set and align engineering productivity KPIs.
• Partner with Engineering managers and HR on developing career framework/development programs for engineering teams.
• Develop and implement training programs and workshops to upskill teams on modern technologies and best practices.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years in a staff, principal, or director-level role.
• Proven leadership in large-scale software architecture, engineering operations, or developer platforms.
• Deep hands-on expertise in modern software development practices, CI/CD, cloud-native design, and agile delivery.
• Demonstrated experience improving developer productivity and tooling at scale.
• Familiarity with industry-standard tools: Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Jellyfish, or similar.
• Strong hands-on experience with one or more major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), including containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), serverless, and cloud infrastructure automation.
• Familiarity with cloud security best practices and compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.) relevant to SaaS platforms.
• Experience leading globally distributed teams or working in a multinational environment.
• Familiarity with modern DevOps and SRE practices.
• Strong communication and influencing skills across executive and technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in regulated industries (financial services, legal tech, healthcare, etc.).
• Contributions to internal developer portals or productivity platforms.

Why Join Us

• Be part of a global digital transformation journey.
• Own and drive high-impact initiatives that touch every part of the engineering lifecycle.
• Work with cutting-edge tools and frameworks in a highly collaborative, innovation-driven culture.
• Competitive compensation and benefits in a flexible, hybrid working model.

Success Criteria for Position:

• Engineering Standards & Architecture: Success in this role involves defining and enforcing global coding standards, review practices, and software quality benchmarks. Partnering with Engineering Managers, Principal and Staff Engineers across teams to drive consistent architectural patterns, scalable systems design, and technical excellence. Collaborating with Enterprise Architects and other senior technical leaders in technical reviews for critical architectural decisions. Coach engineers, tech leads, and managers to question assumptions. Teach them to build a viable open architecture that scales.
• Developer Productivity & Experience: Designing and delivering a cohesive Developer Experience (DevEx) strategy, streamlining workflows and productivity using tools such as Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence, and Jellyfish. Improving build times, test automation coverage, onboarding experience, and inner development loops. Increasing developer productivity via training and AI coding tools. Defining and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to evaluate engineering productivity, quality, and delivery timelines. Overseeing the creation and maintenance of dashboards and reporting systems to provide visibility into project status and team performance.
• Tooling & Process Optimization: Owning the strategic roadmap for engineering productivity tooling, including evaluation, adoption, and retirement of tools. Working closely with Platform Engineering and DevOps to enhance automation, observability, and infrastructure-as-code. Evaluating, integrating, and scaling tools that drive engineering performance and satisfaction.
• Leadership & Influence: Acting as a technical advisor and productivity champion to engineering teams globally. Mentoring and guiding engineers, tech leads, and managers on engineering best practices. Coach engineers, tech leads, and managers to question assumptions. Teach them to be creative and look at the bigger picture. Collaborating with executive leadership to set and align engineering productivity KPIs. Partnering with Engineering managers and HR on developing career learning plans/development programs for individuals and engineering teams. Developing and implementing training programs and workshops to upskill teams on modern technologies and best practices.

Establishes and maintains a healthy, trust-based partnership with Product leadership to ensure aligned priorities, shared accountability, and seamless delivery planning between Engineering and Product teams.