About this role
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
IT OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT
• 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.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT & APPLICATION ENGINEERING
• 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 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
GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES
• 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.
QUALIFICATIONS
Leadership & Management
• Minimum 3 years leading technical staff, with direct reports or equivalent accountability for the work, performance, and development of other technical personnel.
• Ability to lead a development project end to end (scope, estimate, sequence, assign, track, and deliver) while personally writing a meaningful share of the code.
• Demonstrated vendor and managed service provider management, including scope, service levels, performance monitoring, and contract negotiation.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences, including eliciting requirements from operational departments and explaining technical constraints and risk to leadership.
IT Operations & Security
• Experience managing an organization's technology environment, including enterprise networking, endpoint and mobile device management, SaaS applications, and supporting infrastructure.
• Working experience administering Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, including identity and access management.
• Practical cybersecurity and compliance experience, including endpoint protection, vulnerability remediation, system hardening, backup and disaster recovery, and support of audits or regulatory reviews.
• Willingness and ability to work hands-on across the full range of IT needs in a small company, including direct end-user support when circumstances require it.
Software Development
• 5+ years designing, building, and supporting business applications in production, with current, demonstrable hands-on development experience.
• Production development experience in C# / .NET and JavaScript / TypeScript, including at least one modern front-end framework such as React, Angular, Vue, or Blazor.
• Relational database design and development in SQL Server or Azure SQL, including data modeling, stored procedures, indexing, and performance tuning.
• Demonstrated experience designing, securing, documenting, and maintaining production RESTful APIs and third-party integrations, including OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect through Entra ID, OpenAPI documentation, and versioning.
• Modern engineering practice, including Git-based source control (GitHub or Azure DevOps), code review, environment separation, automated build and deployment pipelines, and secure coding.
• Demonstrated delivery of a business-critical application that replaced a manual process or a vendor-hosted system, including requirements definition, build, data migration, and cutover.
Microsoft Cloud & Platform
• Production experience hosting and operating applications in Microsoft Azure (App Services and/or Azure Functions, secret management, monitoring, and cost management), building with Power Apps and Power Automate, and using SharePoint Online as an application data source.
WORKING CONDITIONS
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee will primarily work in an office setting. Occasionally, the employee is exposed to outside weather conditions which may include wet and/or humid conditions and extreme heat and cold. When working outside the office, the noise level in the work environment is often loud. Occasional travel may be required (<10%).
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made for qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this role. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to speak, write, and understand English. Employees must also adhere to Gridiron Air's Drug and Alcohol policies.
Gridiron Air LLC is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender identity, marital or veteran status, or any other protected class.