We’re building a world of health around every individual — shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you’ll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger – helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.
Position Summary:
We're looking for a Lead Director of Software Engineering who thinks like a founder, executes like a
principal engineer, and leads like someone who's done it at the highest levels of the industry. You will
set the bar — and then raise it.
What You'll Actually Do:
• Drive technical strategy across a multi-team engineering organization (50–150+ engineers),
setting architectural standards, defining engineering excellence benchmarks, and personally
reviewing and elevating the work.
• Operational Efficiency. Every system design decision you make should start with the question:
How to create10x leverage? You will actively embed LLMs, generative AI, agentic workflows, and
ML-powered automation into the engineering lifecycle, not just as experiments, but as
production-grade differentiators.
• Own delivery at velocity. You ship. You are accountable for outcomes, not roadmaps. You hold
your teams to the same standard.
• Partner at the executive level — with Product owners, Data Engineers, and Health care business
leaders — translating business strategy into engineering bets with precision and conviction.
• Be the technical voice in the room You call out architectural debt, push back on infeasible
timelines, and advocate for the right engineering investment.
Required Qualifications
• 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading large-
scale engineering organizations. You have built and scaled systems that serve tens of thousands
of users. You know what happens when your system goes down.
• Deep, hands-on technical foundation in distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, and
modern backend engineering at scale.
• Proven AI platform ownership. You have deployed production AI systems - not POCs, not
demos, not limited to prompt engineering. You understand model deployment pipelines, vector
databases, RAG architectures, LLM orchestration, inference optimization, and responsible AI
principles.
• Track record of engineering transformation. You have migrated monoliths to microservices,
modernized legacy platforms under real business pressure, and lived the consequences of every
architectural decision you've made.
Preferred Qualifications
• Healthcare or highly regulated domain experience — You have navigated HIPAA, CMS
compliance, PHI data handling development.
• Platform engineering ownership — You have built or led internal developer platforms,
engineering productivity tooling.
Pay Range
The typical pay range for this role is:
$144,200.00 - $288,400.00
This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls. The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors. This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program.
Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.
Great benefits for great people
We take pride in offering a comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits that reflects our commitment to our colleagues and their families.
Additional details about available benefits are provided during the application process and on Benefits Moments.
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.
Skills Required
- 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience
- 5+ years leading large-scale engineering organizations
- Experience building and scaling systems serving tens of thousands of users
- Deep hands-on experience with distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, and modern backend engineering at scale
- Experience deploying production AI systems, including model deployment pipelines, vector databases, RAG architectures, LLM orchestration, inference optimization, and responsible AI
- Experience migrating monoliths to microservices
- Experience modernizing legacy platforms under business pressure
- Healthcare or highly regulated domain experience, including HIPAA, CMS compliance, and PHI data handling
- Experience building or leading internal developer platforms and engineering productivity tooling
CVS Health Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about CVS Health and has not been reviewed or approved by CVS Health.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes medical, dental, and vision with HSA-eligible options, free preventive care, virtual care, and access to MinuteClinic services. Mental-health resources such as counseling support are emphasized, and coverage is often considered solid for full-time colleagues.
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Retirement Support — A dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 5% after one year and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan are consistently highlighted in Total Rewards materials. Feedback suggests retirement programs are a meaningful strength within the overall package.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing offerings include up to 20 no-cost counseling sessions per issue, backup care, tuition assistance, and substantial in-store discounts, alongside broader wellness tools. These everyday perks expand value beyond base pay and can be especially meaningful for full-time schedules.
CVS Health Insights
What We Do
CVS Health is the leading health solutions company that delivers care in ways no one else can. We reach people in more ways and improve the health of communities across America through our local presence, digital channels and our nearly 300,000 dedicated colleagues – including more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners. Wherever and whenever people need us, we help them with their health – whether that’s managing chronic diseases, staying compliant with their medications, or accessing affordable health and wellness services in the most convenient ways. We help people navigate the health care system – and their personal health care – by improving access, lowering costs and being a trusted partner for every meaningful moment of health. And we do it all with heart, each and every day.
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