Lead Developer

Are you looking to lead a development team working remotely, use the latest AI-assisted development tools, and contribute to the evolution of a solution at the heart of a company recognized as a leader in its market? You might be the perfect fit for Progitek!

Role Overview

Reporting to the CTO, you will combine technical leadership and direct software development contributions. You will guide the team responsible for existing systems and actively participate in architectural decisions affecting Dentitek's on-site and cloud ecosystem, focusing primarily on PowerBuilder, C#/.NET, and the relational data layer.

You don't need to be a PowerBuilder specialist upon arrival. We are looking for an experienced technical leader capable of using AI-assisted development processes, sound engineering judgment, and close collaboration with our PowerBuilder specialists to safely modernize a large, essential system for our clients.

As existing systems are modernized, your skills in modern technologies will also contribute to defining the architecture and roadmap of the next-generation application and ensuring its implementation. This application will eventually replace the existing solution.

1) Technical Leadership and Architecture

• Vision and Strategy: In collaboration with the CTO, define and communicate the technical vision and strategy for modernizing existing systems and the next-generation product.
• Architectural Responsibility: Design and maintain the current and target architecture covering PowerBuilder, C#/.NET services, databases, integrations, and cloud components, ensuring the solution's scalability, reliability, security, and maintainability.
• Technical Governance: Establish and enforce, with the CTO, coding standards, engineering best practices, architectural guidelines, and safeguards surrounding AI-assisted development.
• Code and Architecture Reviews: Lead or oversee reviews to ensure the team produces high-quality code, adheres to agreed patterns, and adequately documents technical decisions.
• Prototyping: Design and validate architectural prototypes or proofs of concept when it's the fastest way to reduce uncertainty.
• Technical Debt and Continuous Improvement: Make technical debt visible, prioritize it based on product needs, and lead improvements to development processes, tools, testing, and delivery methods.
• Risks and Security: Identify technical, delivery, and team-related risks; define mitigation and fallback strategies; and ensure vulnerabilities and security concerns are addressed promptly.
• Delivery Leadership: Support the Operations Director and CTO in estimating, sequencing, tracking milestones and deliverables, and clear communication of technological impacts on efforts, costs, and risks for the customer.
• Team Leadership: Contribute to determining capacity and staffing needs; participate in recruitment; onboarding, mentoring, and coaching team members; and contribute to conflict resolution and performance feedback, in collaboration with the CTO and team leaders.
• Interfunctional Collaboration: Establish strong working relationships between development, quality assurance, operations, product, and UX/UI teams to ensure smooth progress from design to production.
• Technology Watch: Stay abreast of industry-relevant tools, technologies, and practices, and apply them pragmatically when they create real value.
• 2) Concrete Modernization of Existing Systems (Primary Responsibility)
• Lead and execute the refactoring of the PowerBuilder codebase and its C#/.NET services and integrations, including changes to queries, data access models, error handling, and business logic assumptions.
• Modernize the data layer to enable the solution to adopt more modern database technology and schema while preserving data integrity, performance, and backward compatibility.
• Intensively use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Codex, Copilot, or ChatGPT) to:
• + efficiently explore unfamiliar existing modules
• + generate safe refactoring proposals and detailed, step-by-step modernization plans
• + accelerate the creation of tests, documentation, analysis, and repetitive modernization tasks
• + validate generated changes through rigorous reviews, testing, and data checks
• Apply modern engineering practices within the constraints of existing systems, including:
• + systematic refactoring and normalization of models, resilience, and error handling
• + a tailored automated testing strategy for PowerBuilder, C#/.NET, and integration constraints
• + clear code review standards, maintainability improvements, and adequate technical documentation
• + performance, synchronization, and data integrity validation
• Create tools, processes, and safeguards that enable generalist developers to safely contribute to PowerBuilder modernization using AI-assisted processes, including practical guides, validation loops, "done" checklists, risk triage methods, and fallback strategies.
• Collaborate closely with the current PowerBuilder team on target architecture, phased execution, best practices, and knowledge transfer to ensure the solution remains easy to maintain long-term.
• Collaborate across the entire technology stack (SQL Anywhere, PowerBuilder, C#/.NET services, integrations, and cloud components) to ensure modernization work does not disrupt synchronization, integrations, or customer processes.

3) Migration Roadmap and Next-Generation Planning

• Assess the current on-site architecture, identify modernization and migration risks, and propose a systematic improvement plan.
• Lead the architecture and planning of the gradual migration of existing PowerBuilder features and C# components to a modern target solution.
• Produce a pragmatic roadmap covering phases, dependencies, milestones, customer impacts, coexistence, backward compatibility, and fallback options.
• Guide execution with the team responsible for existing systems and the broader engineering group, balancing modernization progress, product deliveries, and operational stability.

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or engineering, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Demonstrated experience in technical leadership, architectural decision-making, and delivering software to production.
• Solid experience in C#/.NET development, ideally with Windows desktop applications, services, integrations, or other systems essential to activities.
• Experience as a senior developer in maintaining and debugging large production codebases, accompanied by strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong knowledge of relational databases and SQL, including schema evolution, query design, performance, and data validation.
• Extensive experience (or demonstrated mastery) of AI-assisted development tools and processes, including secure validation of AI-generated results.
• Strong knowledge of software architecture, code review practices, automated testing, security, resilience, and technical debt management.
• Solid mastery of Git and collaborative workflows with Git.
• Experience with agile development methods, such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Ability to estimate work, communicate technical trade-offs, manage risks, and translate a strategy into a delivery plan.