Director Software Development Jobs in Houston, TX

The Senior Manager - Controls and Automation Software Development is responsible for leading Patterson-UTI's Controls and Automation Development team, providing the technical leadership, engineering governance, and organizational capability required to deliver safe, reliable, and scalable drilling control systems across the company's fleet.

This role is accountable for engineering execution, software development processes, architecture governance, software quality, release management, engineering standards, and the continuous development of a high-performing software engineering organization. The Senior Manager leads a multidisciplinary team responsible for PLC software, HMI applications, simulation, quality assurance, and software platform development.

Working closely with Product Management, Sustaining Engineering, and New Projects teams, this leader ensures engineering execution aligns with business priorities while maintaining the highest standards for software quality, technical excellence, and predictable delivery.

This position reports to the Director, Controls & Automation.

Detailed Description 

• Build and lead a high-performing Controls Software Engineering organization responsible for delivering safe, reliable, and scalable control software across Patterson-UTI's drilling fleet.

• Establish a culture of technical excellence, accountability, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Lead Technical Leads, Senior Engineers, Quality Engineering, and third-party engineering resources responsible for software development and validation.

• Develop organizational capability through structured coaching, mentorship, succession planning, and leadership development.

• Define and maintain engineering career ladders and technical competency expectations across all engineering levels.

• Develop and maintain the Principal Engineer pipeline by identifying, mentoring, and growing future technical leaders.

• Own workforce planning, future staffing strategy, and hiring plans aligned with the Controls & Automation technology roadmap.

• Establish and maintain the technical hiring bar for the organization and participate in final technical interviews for senior engineering positions.

• Lead the performance management process, ensuring evaluations are based on measurable performance, technical contribution, leadership, and organizational impact.

• Promote a diverse and inclusive work environment where employees feel respected, supported, and empowered to contribute their best work.

• Establish the technical direction for the Controls Software Engineering organization while empowering Technical Leads and Principal Engineers to own detailed solution design and implementation.

• Govern software architecture through structured architecture reviews, engineering standards, and technical design processes.

• Ensure engineering teams consistently deliver high-quality software, documentation, control algorithms, and system designs that meet company standards.

• Own the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), including development standards, coding practices, testing methodologies, documentation requirements, release controls, and change management processes.

• Define and enforce software contribution standards, including code quality, modularity, documentation, maintainability, and testability.

• Own the engineering technical debt strategy by ensuring technical debt is identified, prioritized, and systematically addressed during release planning.

• Maintain active technical engagement across all engineering programs by evaluating architecture proposals, identifying technical risks, facilitating architecture reviews, and resolving escalated technical decisions.

• Champion modern software engineering practices including AI-assisted software development, automated testing, simulation, continuous integration, static code analysis, and engineering productivity tools.

• Ensure software engineering practices comply with company cybersecurity policies and secure software development lifecycle standards.

• Stay current with industrial automation technologies and software engineering best practices to continuously improve engineering capabilities.

• Own engineering execution for the Controls Software Engineering organization, ensuring commitments are delivered safely, predictably, and with high quality.

• Drive the department's platform release cadence by ensuring development across all engineering teams converges into stable, production-ready software releases.

• Own engineering planning, release planning, capacity planning, resource allocation, dependency management, and delivery forecasting.

• Conduct regular engineering delivery reviews with Technical Leads to identify execution risks, remove organizational blockers, and maintain predictable delivery.

• Make engineering Go/No-Go recommendations for software releases in partnership with Quality Engineering and Product Management.

• Establish measurable engineering performance metrics and continuously improve engineering effectiveness.

• Drive continuous improvement in software quality, engineering productivity, release predictability, and deployment readiness.

• Work closely with Product Management during field qualification, beta testing, and release validation to ensure successful deployment of new functionality.

• Establish strong communication channels with field operations and technical support organizations to capture operational feedback and continuously improve engineering deliverables.

• Own the long-term evolution of Patterson-UTI's Controls Software Platform, driving modular architecture, software reuse, hardware abstraction, configuration-driven deployment, maintainability, and scalability.

• Maintain governance of the company's software intellectual property and engineering assets in accordance with corporate policies.

• Oversee the Controls Engineering Laboratory, simulation environments, software qualification infrastructure, and engineering validation processes.

• Ensure engineering teams have the development environments, simulation capabilities, testing frameworks, and engineering tools necessary to deliver high-quality software efficiently.

• Lead continuous improvement of software validation, simulation, and qualification processes to reduce engineering risk and improve release quality.

Demonstrated ability in the following leadership competencies:

• Builds and Maintains Effective Relationships 
• Develops Self and Others
• Builds Effective Teams
• Courageous Leadership
• Managing Vision and Purpose
• Business Acumen
• Drive for Results
• Customer Focus
• Decision Quality

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Automation Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent industry experience.

• Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience developing industrial controls software, preferably PLC- and HMI-based systems.

• Demonstrated experience leading software engineering teams responsible for industrial automation or mission-critical control systems.

• Strong understanding of industrial communication protocols.

• Demonstrated ability to lead multiple engineering programs while managing competing priorities and delivery schedules.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Fifteen or more years of experience developing industrial control systems within drilling, rig equipment, oil and gas, or other heavy industrial automation industries.

• Previous leadership experience managing multidisciplinary software engineering organizations.

• Experience with industrial automation platforms such as Omron, Siemens TIA Portal, WinCC, Ignition or equivalent.

• Experience with HMI development, simulation environments, automated software testing, and software quality systems.

• Working knowledge of VFD systems, motion control, and industrial networking technologies.

• Experience supporting field commissioning, troubleshooting, and deployment of industrial automation systems.

Work Environment

This position requires the person to be able to work in a time sensitive, high visibility role and regularly travel as needed to support business units and to visit work sites. It may also require extended travel to remote locations and/or overnight stay(s) during variable hours. Variable work hours include hours worked on the weekend, on holidays, and hours to travel within and outside of the assigned region. The Engineer must work with an emphasis on planning, multitasking, and prioritization to maximize efficiency of the team. Must be able to work closely with others and manage customer interaction in a professional manner. Ability to safely navigate work sites with occasional walking, climbing, standing, stepping, working at heights, etc., during normal operating conditions (day/night, outdoor hot/cold weather) and while utilizing designated personal protective equipment (PPE). Travel: up to 25%