Director of Development and Operations

Acorn Credentialing Solutions

Position Summary

The Director of Development and Operations is a senior operational leader responsible for aligning customer-facing teams, system support, implementation, and development activities to ensure Acorn delivers a stable, scalable, and compliant platform. This role serves as the operational bridge between Customer Success, System Support Specialists, Implementation, IT, and Development to manage business requirements, prioritize enhancements, coordinate bug reporting and resolution, and oversee ongoing system maintenance and audit support activities.

This leader will drive operational discipline across the organization by establishing clear processes for issue intake, requirements gathering, backlog prioritization, release coordination, customer-impact communication, and technical compliance support. The ideal candidate brings strong operational leadership, technical fluency, process rigor, and the ability to manage cross-functional teams in a fast-paced healthcare technology environment.

Key Responsibilities

Cross-Functional Operations and Delivery Management

  • Lead the day-to-day coordination of operational activities across Customer Success, System Support, Implementation, IT, and Development teams.
  • Serve as the central point of operational oversight for enhancement requests, bug reporting, customer-impacting issues, system maintenance, and configuration needs.
  • Ensure that customer-facing operational priorities are translated into clear business and technical requirements for Development and IT teams.
  • Create and maintain structured processes for intake, triage, documentation, prioritization, escalation, and follow-through of customer and internal system issues.
  • Partner with Customer Success and Implementation leadership to ensure issues identified during onboarding, configuration, go-live, and post-launch support are properly documented and addressed.
  • Oversee coordination of recurring maintenance activities, release readiness, and operational follow-up to minimize disruption to clients and internal teams.

Business Requirements, Enhancements, and Defect Management

  • Own the operational process for gathering, documenting, validating, and communicating business requirements for product enhancements, system changes, and configuration updates.
  • Establish standards for enhancement requests, including business justification, operational impact, customer value, technical dependencies, and implementation considerations.
  • Oversee the bug reporting lifecycle from issue identification through triage, prioritization, resolution tracking, testing coordination, and communication back to stakeholders.
  • Work closely with System Support Specialists and Customer Success teams to improve issue quality, reproducibility, documentation, and escalation discipline.
  • Facilitate prioritization meetings with Development, IT, and leadership to align resources against customer commitments, platform stability, compliance needs, and strategic priorities.
  • Ensure backlog management processes are organized, transparent, and aligned with service expectations and business goals.

Customer Success and Implementation Partnership

  • Partner directly with Customer Success to identify trends, recurring friction points, service gaps, and product opportunities impacting client satisfaction and retention.
  • Work with Implementation teams to ensure business requirements are translated into scalable configuration, workflow, and onboarding standards.
  • Support the development of repeatable implementation and support processes that improve quality, reduce rework, and strengthen handoffs between teams.
  • Help establish governance around customer requests to distinguish between enhancements, defects, training issues, workflow issues, and configuration adjustments.
  • Ensure operational follow-up on major customer concerns, including root cause review, corrective action planning, and communication of next steps.

SOC 2, Compliance, and Audit Readiness

  • Coordinate operational and technical support activities related to SOC 2, HIPAA, and other compliance initiatives in partnership with IT and executive leadership.
  • Maintain disciplined processes and supporting documentation for change management, issue management, user access considerations, release controls, system monitoring support, and operational evidence needed for audits.
  • Work with IT and Development to ensure operational processes align with security, reliability, and control requirements.
  • Support audit readiness by organizing evidence, documenting procedures, validating adherence to controls, and addressing control gaps where operational teams are involved.
  • Help ensure that maintenance, support, and release practices are documented and performed consistently in accordance with company policy and audit expectations.
  • Promote a culture of accountability, documentation, and control awareness across customer-facing and operational teams.

Process Improvement and Operational Governance

  • Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, communication, accountability, and visibility across the customer issue and enhancement lifecycle.
  • Develop and implement operating rhythms, dashboards, and KPIs related to support trends, backlog health, implementation quality, enhancement throughput, issue resolution, and customer-impacting defects.
  • Use data and operational metrics to drive better decision-making, resource planning, and service performance.
  • Standardize workflows across teams to improve handoffs, reduce missed requirements, and ensure consistent execution.
  • Partner with IT and Development to support process automation where appropriate.

Team Leadership

  • Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing operational function that supports scalable delivery and customer outcomes.
  • Foster a culture of ownership, urgency, responsiveness, process discipline, and continuous improvement.
  • Ensure cross-functional teams are aligned around shared priorities, service expectations, and company objectives.
  • Provide leadership in resolving operational bottlenecks and escalated issues that affect customers, delivery timelines, or compliance obligations.

Strategic and Executive Support

  • Contribute operational insight to company planning, budgeting, resourcing, and growth strategy.
  • Help leadership assess operational readiness for new clients, product capabilities, compliance initiatives, and internal scaling needs.
  • Work closely with the CEO and executive team to align daily execution with broader business objectives.

Qualifications

Education

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Operations Management, Information Systems, Healthcare Administration, or a related field required.
  • MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Experience

  • 10+ years of experience in operations, delivery, support, implementation, or related leadership roles within a software or healthcare technology company.
  • 5+ years in a senior leadership or director-level role with responsibility for cross-functional operational management.
  • Experience working closely with Customer Success, Support, Implementation, IT, and Development teams in a SaaS or enterprise software environment.
  • Strong experience managing business requirements, issue escalation, enhancement prioritization, and release coordination.
  • Experience supporting SOC 2, HIPAA, or similar compliance and audit frameworks is strongly preferred.
  • Experience in healthcare credentialing, enrollment, provider data management, or a related healthcare operations field is strongly preferred.
  • Demonstrated success building process-driven organizations and improving execution in complex, fast-changing environments.

Skills

  • Strong leadership, organizational, and cross-functional team management skills.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate operational needs into clear business and technical requirements.
  • Strong problem-solving, prioritization, and operational decision-making abilities.
  • High attention to detail, especially in documentation, audit support, and issue tracking.
  • Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive accountability across teams.
  • Strong understanding of change management, defect tracking, release coordination, and customer-impact communication.
  • Process-oriented mindset with the ability to build scalable operational frameworks.

Technical Experience

  • Microsoft Office Suite, including Teams, Excel, Power BI, and Microsoft Project.
  • Experience with CRM, support, or project management platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics and ZenTao or similar tools.
  • Working knowledge of software development and support environments, including .NET, .NET Core, RESTful APIs, SQL Server, AWS, web applications, and cloud-based systems.
  • Familiarity with software architecture concepts such as SOA, microservices, system integrations, and release/change management practices.
  • Ability to work effectively with technical teams without needing to be the primary hands-on developer.

Work Environment

This role is remote, with occasional travel required for leadership meetings, client meetings, implementation support, conferences, and team collaboration.

This position has been filled.