Technology Director — Global Health

ICF's Global Health and Development (GHD) line of business, part of the Health, People, and Human Services (HPHS) Group, is seeking a Technology Director to lead technology modernization efforts across various global health and survey programs. This is a hands-on leadership role. You will own delivery of the program's technology work from end to end. You will also serve as one of its technical leads and architects, designing systems yourself as well as directing the team that builds them. You will bridge ICF's applied AI and software engineers with its survey methodologists, statisticians, field operations staff, and country partners. You will be accountable to the funder for results, including the decision to redirect work that isn't performing and move the funding to work that is.

This position can be remote within the United States, with occasional international travel.

It is contingent upon award of program funding.

Key Responsibilities

Technology Modernization Delivery Leadership

• Own delivery of the program's AI innovation portfolio. The workstreams cover automated data-to-report production, natural-language data access, multilingual questionnaire design, field data quality, and new measurement approaches.
• Run the stage-gate process. Lead go/no-go reviews, and make and defend decisions to stop workstreams, publish what they learned, and reallocate their funding.
• Serve as the principal technical counterpart to the funder. Lead progress reporting and learning reviews. Communicate results candidly, including negative ones.
• Manage the innovation portfolio, schedule, and risks with the project manager, including inference and cloud operating costs.
• Coordinate across global development programs. Share successes, failures, and methods with technology partners to avoid duplicating work.

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Act as technical lead and architect for a cluster of workstreams. Own their system design, write the design documents, and stay hands-on through prototyping and production.
• Define acceptance criteria before the work is judged. With survey experts, set the quantitative quality thresholds each tool must meet, and hold the team (and yourself) to them.
• Set architecture and standards across the portfolio: model selection and routing, privacy-preserving design, offline and low-connectivity deployment, and security.
• Set engineering practice for the team, including specification-driven development with agentic coding tools, evaluation-first delivery, code review, and testing.
• Protect data quality and comparability. Work with survey methodologists so that no innovation breaks the comparability of data across countries and over time.
• Oversee responsible AI, data governance, and ethics. Make sure the program meets ICF security standards, IRB requirements, and partner-country data sovereignty expectations.

Team Leadership & Collaboration

• Lead and mentor the program's technology team, including applied AI, software, ML, and platform engineers.
• Bridge technology and survey expertise. Make sure survey methodologists, statisticians, and field teams shape what gets built, and that engineers understand how surveys work.
• Work with national statistical offices and ministries of health, together with ICF's country engagement leads, to design tools that countries want and can run on their own.
• Share the program's results openly through public documentation, publications, and presentations at technical and global health conferences.
• Contribute to business growth efforts including proactive engagement with potential clients, preparation of white papers, and proposal development.

Minimum Required Experience

• Bachelors degree in IT, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience)
• Minimum 10 years of professional experience designing and delivering technology solutions, including hands-on architecture of multiple complex systems taken into production
• Minimum 5 years leading and mentoring software or data engineering teams to build products or deploy systems

Additional Required Skills and Experience

• A track record of architecting and delivering AI/ML or LLM-powered systems in production, and the ability to explain how their quality was measured and where they failed
• Experience leading a multi-workstream technology program for a foundation, donor, or government client, with accountability for budget and results
• Deep knowledge of system architecture, data pipelines, software development methods, and at least one major cloud platform (e.g., AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud)
• Hands-on familiarity with agentic coding tools and specification-driven development, and experience setting how a team uses them
• U.S. citizenship is required by federal government contract

Preferred Skills

• Working proficiency in French or Portuguese
• Background in survey operations or data collection, such as work on or with the Demographic & Health Surveys (DHS) Program, Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), a national census, or other population-based household surveys
• Experience delivering technology for global health or international development programs in low- and middle-income countries
• Experience with field data-collection systems for low-connectivity settings (e.g., e, c, ODK), or with offline or edge deployment
• Experience working with national statistical offices or ministries of health
• Experience leading a stage-gated R&D or innovation portfolio, including a decision to stop a workstream
• Experience setting and being held to quantitative acceptance thresholds for an AI or data system
• Experience with multi-country deployments where data cannot leave a jurisdiction, and with data privacy and governance for human data, including IRB processes
• Experience with cybersecurity practices, security controls, and authorization processes
• Publications or conference presentations in AI, survey methods, or global health
• Advanced degree in computer science, statistics, demography, public health, or a related field

Professional Skills

• Credible with both engineers and executives. Can lead a technical design review in the morning and brief a funder's leadership in the afternoon
• Sound judgment under uncertainty. Can tell a workstream that is late from one that isn't going to work, and acts on it
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders, including survey experts and government partners
• Strong presentation skills, with the ability to simplify complex topics for business, funder, and program audiences
• Works productively and builds relationships at all levels and across cultures, from senior leadership to entry level
• Self-motivated. Finds ways to add value without a lot of direct supervision

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Please note that this application must be submitted directly by the applicant for consideration. Failure to do so may result in the application being excluded for consideration. Applicants needing an accommodation for disability or religious purposes in connection with the application process should contact Candidateaccommodation@icf.com for assistance.

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