Technical Governance Lead

Why do you need to choose between doing important work and having a fulfilling life? At Ardent , we have both. Ardent employees are committed to solving our customers’ most difficult problems—and we are committed to the well-being, personal goals, and professional development of our employee. We are “All In.” We put forth our strongest effort possible to get the mission accomplished and we do it together. We respect the skills and experience you bring to the Ardent team. And we provide a rewarding environment to help you succeed. We offer highly competitive benefits, professional development opportunities, and an exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth. A collective service mindset underpins our work, and a shared camaraderie to serve clients, colleagues and our communities set us apart. Our full commitment to being "All In" for our employees and our clients is not just our approach, it is our standard. If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, choose Ardent and make a difference with us. Ardent is seeking a Technical Governance Lead to join our team. This is a remote position . Position Description: Ardent is seeking a Technical Governance Lead to join our dynamic team. The Technical Governance Lead is responsible for establishing, maintaining, and enforcing governance frameworks, policies, and standards across IT systems and processes within the scope of the contract. This role leads all technical activities, including establishing and enforcing software development, testing, automation, and security, compliance with organizational and regulatory requirements while driving consistency, efficiency, and accountability. The Technical Governance Lead requires a minimum of eight (8) years of experience, including leadership roles in governance, risk, and compliance, and managing technical teams and frameworks. Responsibilities and Duties: Establish, implement, and enforce technical governance frameworks, policies, and standards across IT systems, software delivery, and engineering processes. Lead governance oversight for software development, testing, automation, DevSecOps, and security to ensure alignment with organizational and regulatory requirements. Drive adoption of Team Managed Deployment (TMD) practices to enable efficient, secure, and high-quality software delivery across the enterprise. Oversee automated policy enforcement and prescriptive remediation strategies to reduce maturity gaps and eliminate manual compliance bottlenecks. Ensure consistent application of quality, security, and compliance controls across all systems and programs without reliance on manual intervention. Partner with cross-functional teams to enable horizontal delivery, improve collaboration, and standardize engineering practices across multiple programs. Define and monitor governance KPIs, ensuring continuous improvement in deployment speed, release quality, and compliance adherence. Lead the design and implementation of automated performance metrics and reporting frameworks to support data-driven decision making. Increase visibility and transparency across products, portfolios, and delivery pipelines in alignment with agency policies. Establish feedback loops and governance mechanisms that continuously improve delivery, testing, and operational performance. Provide leadership and direction to technical teams, ensuring accountability, consistency, and adherence to governance standards. Requirements: Minimum of 8+ years of experience in IT, including leadership roles in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) and technical delivery environments. Proven experience establishing and enforcing governance frameworks across software development, DevSecOps, and enterprise IT systems. Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC), CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment practices. Experience implementing or supporting automated governance, policy enforcement, and compliance validation within engineering workflows. Demonstrated ability to lead and manage technical teams while driving standardization and process improvement across multiple programs. Experience with performance metrics, reporting frameworks, and data-driven decision-making models in large-scale environments. Familiarity with federal or highly regulated environments (e.g., compliance, security, audit requirements). Strong knowledge of security, compliance, and quality assurance practices within modern engineering ecosystems. Experience enabling cross-team collaboration and horizontal scaling of delivery practices across enterprise environments. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences. Due to the nature of the work we support, all candidates in consideration for this role must be willing to undergo the government issued background investigation process. We highly encourage all Veterans and those with disabilities to apply. Ardent is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other basis protected by state, local, or federal law.