PATH Development Lead in Morrisville, Pennsylvania at Pet Meadow

About the Role

The PATH Development Lead is responsible for the technical leadership, design, development, enhancement, and long-term evolution of Pet Meadow's proprietary PATH software platform. This role serves as the senior technical leader for the application, ensuring the platform remains reliable, scalable, secure, and aligned with business objectives.

The PATH Development Lead combines hands-on software development with technical leadership responsibilities. The individual will lead a team of developers, establish development standards, oversee software architecture, and partner closely with Operations, Customer Service, Logistics, Finance, and Executive Leadership to deliver innovative solutions that support Pet Meadow's continued growth.

This role functions as both a player and coach—remaining actively involved in software development while guiding the team's technical direction and execution.

Primary Areas of Responsibility

Software Development Leadership

• Lead the ongoing development, enhancement, and support of the PATH platform.

• Establish and maintain software development standards, coding practices, and architectural principles.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to software developers.

• Conduct code reviews and ensure adherence to quality standards.

• Drive technical decision-making for new features, integrations, and platform enhancements.

• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and accountability.

Application Architecture & Design

• Design and maintain scalable, secure, and highly available application architectures.

• Evaluate and implement new technologies, frameworks, and development tools.

• Ensure solutions are designed for long-term maintainability and operational efficiency.

• Identify and address technical debt while creating modernization roadmaps.

• Collaborate with IT leadership on enterprise architecture initiatives.

Product Delivery & Project Execution

• Partner with business stakeholders to translate operational requirements into technical solutions.

• Participate in backlog refinement, sprint planning, estimation, and prioritization activities.

• Ensure development projects are delivered on time, within scope, and meet quality expectations.

• Remove technical obstacles and proactively identify project risks.

• Coordinate releases, deployments, and post-release support activities.

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing software development team.

• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and performance discussions.

• Assist in recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and developing software engineering talent.

• Create career development plans for team members.

• Promote collaboration across development, QA, infrastructure, and business teams.

Platform Operations & Support

• Ensure production stability, performance, and uptime of the PATH platform.

• Oversee troubleshooting and resolution of complex production issues.

• Establish monitoring, alerting, and incident response processes.

• Collaborate with infrastructure teams to optimize hosting environments and deployment pipelines.

• Lead root cause analysis efforts and implement preventative measures.

Security, Compliance & Quality

• Ensure software development practices align with cybersecurity and data protection standards.

• Implement secure coding practices throughout the software development lifecycle.

• Establish automated testing, CI/CD, and release management processes.

• Drive software quality initiatives, including unit testing, integration testing, and performance testing.

• Maintain appropriate technical documentation and system diagrams.

Key Competencies

• Technical leadership

• Software architecture and design

• Strategic thinking

• Agile development methodologies

• Problem-solving and analytical skills

• Team development and coaching

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Project management

• Communication and stakeholder management

• Continuous improvement mindset

• Use of AI tools to enhance pace and outcome of business application feature set development

• Ability to AI-enable ecosystem and orchestrate agents on an agentic platform

Minimum Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field required.

• Equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.

Experience

• 7+ years of software development experience.

• 3+ years leading software development teams or serving as a technical lead.

• Experience designing and supporting enterprise business applications.

• Experience with Agile/Scrum software development methodologies.

• Demonstrated experience delivering complex software projects in production environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading development of logistics, operations, or workflow-based applications.

• Experience supporting route-based service organizations.

• Experience integrating applications with ERP, CRM, accounting, and third-party platforms.

• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or Microsoft Azure.

• Experience with DevOps, CI/CD, and automated testing frameworks.

• Prior experience in a multi-site operational environment.

Technical Skills

Preferred experience in one or more of the following:

• C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core

• SQL Server and relational database design

• REST APIs and web services

• JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS

• React, Angular, or similar front-end frameworks

• Git source control

• AWS

• Azure DevOps or similar SDLC tools

• CI/CD pipelines

• Cloud infrastructure and containerization technologies

• API integration and middleware platforms

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Application uptime and availability

• On-time project delivery

• Defect rates and production incidents

• Sprint velocity and predictability

• System performance and scalability metrics

• Code quality and technical debt reduction

• Stakeholder satisfaction

• Team engagement and retention

• Mean time to resolution (MTTR)

• Successful deployment frequency

Success in This Role

A successful PATH Development Lead will:

• Ensure PATH remains a stable, scalable, and innovative platform supporting Pet Meadow's growth.

• Build and lead a high-performing development organization.

• Deliver business value through technology innovation and operational excellence.

• Serve as the trusted technical advisor for the PATH platform and related business systems.

• Continuously improve development processes, software quality, and user experience.