Software Development & Information Technology Manager

BACKGROUND

Across the globe, 365 days a year. These talented team FAR Part 121 Supplemental Air Carrier, Gridiron Air is a leading charter airline specializing in customized flight solutions using its fleet of Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. We are committed to delivering new levels of safety, hospitality, and operational excellence to the charter market. Our talented flight and cabin crew operate acr members are supported by dedicated professionals out of our corporate office - including our state-of-the-art Operations Control Center and world-class Maintenance Operation - located at AFW, Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, in Fort Worth, Texas. Flexibility is required to meet the needs of our business and will require evening and weekend availability when needed.

Gridiron expects its employees to conduct business honestly and ethically wherever operations are maintained. We strive to improve our services, products, and processes consistently and will maintain a reputation for safety, reliability, service, operational excellence, integrity, diversity, and inclusion. Our employees are expected to adhere to high standards of business and personal integrity as a representation of our business practices at all times, consistent with their duty of loyalty to the company. In addition, Gridiron Air expects all its employees to uphold a work environment that ensures Safety, Security, Quality, Responsibility, and value for all our employees, clients, customers, and other stakeholders.

SUMMARY

The Manager, Software Development & IT designs, builds, hosts, and supports the business applications that Gridiron Air runs on, and leads the information technology function that supports them. This is a hands-on engineering position with management responsibility, not a management position with technical oversight. The person in this role writes and deploys code, designs and maintains APIs and integrations, builds solutions on Microsoft Azure, the Power Platform, and SharePoint, and personally performs the work when the team's capacity or skills require it.

A primary objective of this position is to lead and personally contribute to the replacement of vendor-hosted compliance and safety platforms with applications built and hosted in house. These are regulated systems of record supporting FAA-required processes, and the role carries technical ownership of their architecture, development, data migration, security, and continued airworthiness of the data they hold.

The role has two direct reports and is accountable for the full range of information technology at a small carrier: enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, end-user support delivered jointly with an external managed service provider, and IT regulatory compliance in a highly regulated aviation environment. The successful candidate is a working software engineer who has led technical staff and is prepared to own everything from an API contract to a laptop refresh.

GENERAL DUTIES

• Design, develop, deploy, and support internal business applications — web applications, APIs and services, Power Apps, Power Automate workflows, SharePoint solutions, and integrations — from requirements gathering through production support.
• Lead the replacement of vendor-hosted compliance and safety platforms, including Comply365 (controlled manual management, revision control, electronic distribution, and read-and-sign tracking) and ProSafeT (safety reporting, investigation, risk assessment, corrective action, and audit management), with in-house applications; serve as the technical lead on these projects and personally contribute to their design and development.
• Deliver, in those applications, the capabilities a regulated system of record requires: role-based access control, document and record versioning, review and approval workflow, electronic acknowledgment with a defensible audit trail, data retention, and the ability to produce evidence on demand to the FAA and to internal and external auditors.
• Plan and execute data migration from incumbent vendor platforms — including historical safety reports, investigations, corrective actions, manual revision history, and acknowledgment records — with reconciliation, validation, and a defined cutover and fallback plan.
• Design, develop, document, secure, and maintain RESTful APIs and system integrations connecting in-house applications, Microsoft 365, and third-party aviation systems such as maintenance tracking, learning management, and crew and personnel systems; manage those interfaces across their full lifecycle, including versioning, authentication, throttling, monitoring, and deprecation.
• Own application hosting in Microsoft Azure, including App Services and Azure Functions, APIs and web services, databases and storage, authentication through Entra ID, secret and certificate management, application monitoring and alerting, and cost management.
• Administer and develop on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online, including site and list architecture, permission models, content and document management, and the SharePoint data layer supporting business applications.
• Apply sound software engineering practice to all work products: source control, code review, separated development and production environments, automated testing where appropriate, repeatable or automated deployment, defined rollback procedures, and documentation sufficient for another qualified person to support the system.
• Apply secure development practice throughout the software lifecycle, including protection against common web application vulnerabilities, secure handling of credentials and sensitive data, and security review of code and dependencies.
• Partner with Maintenance, Quality, Flight Operations, and corporate departments to replace paper and manual processes with automated applications; elicit requirements, propose solutions, and deliver working software.
• Lead, develop, and direct two direct reports — setting technical standards, assigning and reviewing work, mentoring, and managing performance — while personally performing hands-on technical work as part of the normal duties of the role.
• Manage and maintain the organization's technology environment, including enterprise networking, identity and access management, endpoints and mobile devices, SaaS applications, and supporting infrastructure, ensuring availability, security, performance, and operational reliability.
• Manage the external IT managed service provider and other technology vendors, including scope, service levels, performance monitoring, contract negotiation, and cost-effective service delivery.
• Oversee end-user support and the service desk, defining service levels and incident, problem, and change management practices, and serving as the senior escalation point for complex issues.
• Enforce cybersecurity policy and practice, including endpoint protection, identity and access management, vulnerability remediation, and system hardening, in alignment with corporate standards and aviation industry requirements.
• Ensure IT systems, controls, and documentation maintain compliance with applicable regulatory frameworks including FAA requirements, DOD cybersecurity directives where applicable, and corporate IT standards; serve as the primary security and IT compliance advisor to leadership and support audits, cybersecurity insurance requirements, and regulatory reviews.
• Lead IT disaster recovery, backup, and business continuity planning; conduct periodic risk assessments and coordinate testing of recovery procedures.
• Oversee Mobile Device Management (MDM), PC and laptop refresh cycles, and standardization of field technician and office endpoint equipment.
• Management personnel are expected to have a thorough understanding of the Gridiron Air Safety Management System (SMS). They should be competent in executing responsibilities aligned with their training and involvement in the SMS.
• Additionally, they are required and supported to identify and report safety hazards, uncover safety deficiencies, and raise safety concerns within the operation, thereby fostering a proactive safety culture.
• May perform other responsibilities as assigned based on business needs and shifting company priorities.

REQUIRED QULAIFICATIONS

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 5+ years designing, building, and supporting business applications in production, with current, demonstrable hands-on development experience.
• Minimum 3 years leading technical staff, with direct reports or equivalent accountability for the work and development of other technical personnel.
• Demonstrated experience delivering business-critical application that replaced a manual process or a vendor-hosted system, including requirements definition, build, data migration, and cutover.

Software Development

• Professional, production-level development experience in at least three of the following languages: C# / .NET, Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Java.
• Front-end development with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript or TypeScript, including at least one modern framework such as React, Angular, Vue, or Blazor.
• Relational database design and development: data modeling, SQL, stored procedures, indexing, and query performance tuning, using SQL Server or Azure SQL.
• Server-side application architecture, including authentication and authorization, session and state management, background and scheduled processing, file and document handling, and error handling and logging.
• Secure coding practice, including the common web application vulnerability classes and their mitigations, secure credential handling, and dependency and supply-chain awareness.
• Source control and deployment discipline using Git-based tooling (GitHub or Azure DevOps), including branching, code review, environment separation, and documented release and rollback procedures.
• Automated or repeatable build and deployment pipelines (GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, or equivalent).

APIs and Integration

• Demonstrated experience designing and building RESTful APIs in production, including resource and contract design, request and response modeling, status and error semantics, pagination, and idempotency.
• API security: OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, token-based authentication and authorization through Entra ID, API keys and secret management, and transport security.
• API documentation and contract management using OpenAPI / Swagger or an equivalent specification.
• Lifecycle management of APIs and integrations after delivery: versioning, backward compatibility, deprecation and retirement, throttling and rate limiting, monitoring, logging, and fault handling including retry and reconciliation.
• Practical experience integrating with third-party and vendor systems over REST, SOAP, webhooks, or scheduled file-based exchange, including handling vendor-side changes and outages.

Cloud and Platform

• Demonstrated production experience hosting and operating applications in Microsoft Azure, including App Services and/or Azure Functions, APIs and web services, authentication through Entra ID, secret management, application monitoring, and cost management.
• Demonstrated production experience building with the