Technical Director - Remote Canada

Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership & Strategy:
• Establish, implement, and drive the strategic technical direction of the Health Data Platform Features team by translating business goals into a coherent technical roadmap focused on scalability, reliability, and engineering excellence.
• Partner directly with cross-functional leaders to communicate tradeoffs, set engineering priorities, and report on progress.
• Ensure the engineering team is effectively assigned to development work with a focus on quality, efficiency, and operational excellence.


• Quality Engineering Leadership:
• Partner with engineering leads to embed quality gates, testing standards, and defect-prevention practices throughout the SDLC.
• Oversee test planning, automated test coverage goals, defect management processes, and post-release quality metrics.
• Ensure tight alignment between development and quality engineering teams to reduce defects, improve release confidence, and accelerate delivery velocity.
• Lead and maintain full accountability for the Quality Management System (QMS), ensuring compliance with internal standards and external regulatory or audit requirements.
• Own QMS governance, documentation, processes, and continuous improvement initiatives to ensure high-quality, audit-ready engineering practices.
• Champion a culture of engineering rigor, code quality, and continuous improvement.


• Engineering & Execution Oversight:
• Manage day-to-day engineering priorities and establish best practices that drive consistent delivery, maintain technical quality, and support organizational goals.
• Ensure accurate tracking of hours for billing purposes and monitor utilization to meet organizational expectations.
• Develop and maintain team KPIs and metrics, providing reporting to management to support decision-making and accountability.
• Build strong partnerships with cross-functional teams across HDP and the broader organization (HR, finance, sales, marketing, etc.).
• Ensure timely completion of performance reviews with clearly defined goals, competencies, and development plans.
• Mentor, coach, and support team members to foster high performance and professional growth.
• Promote a positive team culture grounded in respect, professionalism, and engineering excellence.


• Compliance:
• Accountable for ensuring that all working hours are accurately reported in Time Tracking System on a daily or weekly basis, that the majority of (if not all) hours are tracked as billable and that the project management tool in the time tracking system is properly and fully utilized. 
• Tracking and reporting of billable hours is a critical aspect of project management and delivery to our customers and this is a major area of accountability.
• Comply with the privacy, security and confidentiality policies. 
• Hold all confidential information in trust and strict confidence and ensure that it shall be used only for the purposes required to fulfill employment obligations, and shall not be used for any other purpose, or disclosed to any third party.  A breach of policy or misuse of information could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment. 
• Smile discloses that artificial intelligence (AI) may be used in portions of the recruitment and selection process, such as resume screening or application assessment. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by qualified human decision-makers, and AI tools are used to support — not replace — fair and equitable hiring practices.

Requirements:

• 7+ years in technical program leadership or engineering management, rooted in a software engineering background.
• 5+ years leading high-performing software development and/or quality engineering teams.
• Post-secondary education in Engineering, Computer Science, Business and/or related field and/or equivalent work experience. 
• Strong SDLC expertise; background in healthcare IT or high-growth tech is preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and guide highly functional and effective technical team(s). 
• Deep understanding of modern engineering practices, cloud technologies, DevOps principles, test automation, and scalable architecture patterns.
• Ability to guide architectural decision-making and ensure technical and quality excellence across teams.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to attract, develop, and retain top engineering and quality talent.
• Proven success in managing executive stakeholders and driving alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Exceptional communication and negotiation skills, including the ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Excellent administrative and operational management skills to ensure predictable delivery and high-quality outcomes.
• Experience with HL7, FHIR, and/or Healthtech is a strong plus.

Additional Information:

• Smile discloses that artificial intelligence (AI) may be used in portions of the recruitment and selection process, such as resume screening or application assessment. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by qualified human decision-makers, and AI tools are used to support — not replace — fair and equitable hiring practices. 
• This position is a replacement role, created to support Smile’s continued growth and commitment to operational excellence.