Steve Keener

Engineering executive with 20+ years transforming federal and enterprise software organizations. Delivered 75% reduction in deployment cycle times at Verizon-scale petabyte data platforms, built and scaled multiprogram engineering divisions supporting DHS national cybersecurity infrastructure, and drove AI-augmented development adoption across six active programs. Consistent record of on-budget, on-schedule delivery in matrixed, high-stakes environments.

Seeking senior engineering leadership roles in defense, intelligence, or enterprise cloud.

VP of Software Engineering at PMAT (2024-01 – Present)

Led software engineering transformation across six active programs, aligning development practices to Agile and DevSecOps standards and driving institutional adoption of AI-augmented development tooling across the IMB division.

• Operational Excellence: Transformed software development processes across the IMB division using Agile and DevSecOps best practices, achieving a 75% improvement in deployment success, 45% reduction in defect rates through expanded QA coverage, and 80% decrease in deployment time — results directly recognized by customer lab management via formal commendations.
• AI-Augmented Process Engineering: Spearheaded organizational adoption of AI-augmented development tools — including Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and LM Studio — establishing governance policies for tool selection, security review, and usage standards across the IMB division. Adoption currently in active rollout across six programs with productivity metrics in measurement phase.
• Architectural Resilience: Directed remote engineering teams in designing and delivering cloud-native architectures on AWS, including microservices, RESTful APIs, and high-throughput data ingestion pipelines — establishing scalable, resilient foundations across six active programs.
• Strategic Talent Management: Redesigned hiring practices and created a software engineering career ladder from scratch — defining role-based skill expectations and clear progression paths — growing the technical team from 22 to 31 engineers (41% increase) while building a high-performance engineering culture.

Associate Director, Software Engineering at Verizon (2021-01 – 2024-01)

Oversaw two software engineering programs with matrixed staffing, directing the full release lifecycle for enterprise-class 24/7 production systems. Accountable for schedule, budget, and technical quality across high-throughput data platforms processing petabytes of data at scale.

• Agile Process Refinement: Redesigned CI/CD pipeline and release governance processes, reducing deployment time from 4 days to 1 day (75% reduction). Achieved zero schedule slips across all quarterly releases by implementing realism-based scheduling, stringent QA standards, and responsive critical bug fix delivery — resulting in consistently high customer satisfaction.
• Enterprise Scale: Directed engineering teams operating high-throughput data platforms processing multiple petabytes of data daily across thousands of servers — one of the largest data infrastructure footprints in Verizon's enterprise technology portfolio.

Senior Manager, Software Engineering — Cyber Division at Lumen / CenturyLink (2017-01 – 2021-01)

Directed multiple software engineering teams supporting mission-critical federal cybersecurity programs, including DHS national infrastructure. Managed cross-functional engineering operations spanning development, QA, and delivery for 24/7 systems with zero tolerance for downtime.

• Mission-Critical Support: Led a 6-person DevOps team providing 24/7 operations for DHS National Cyber Protection System (NCPS) and Einstein 3 Accelerated (E3A) programs, maintaining 99.99% uptime SLA across mission-critical national cybersecurity infrastructure.
• Program Lifecycle: Directed a 6-person engineering team through full software design and release lifecycle for the Einstein 3 Accelerated (E3A) program, delivering 6 production releases annually including new feature development and performance upgrades to active national cybersecurity infrastructure.
• Institutional Knowledge Engineering: Built a comprehensive knowledge management system — encompassing wiki, troubleshooting guides, system design documentation, and defined engineering standards — reducing new developer onboarding time from 6 months to 1 month on complex mission-critical cybersecurity systems.

Technical Director / Software Architect at Cabin Digital (2013-01 – 2017-01)

Directed engineering operations and technical architecture for commercial and government software programs. Created technical roadmaps, championed emerging technologies, and provided technical support for business development and proposal efforts.

• Cloud Architecture: Served as Chief Architect for five AWS-native applications spanning intelligence, geospatial, and data analytics domains for DOD and commercial customers — directing engineering teams of 3–7 members through full design, development, and deployment lifecycles.
• Data Engineering: Designed and deployed enterprise application databases and ETL data ingest pipelines leveraging AWS cloud-native services and RDS instances, optimizing system performance and enabling rapid iterative delivery.
• Business Development: Provided technical architecture leadership and proposal support for new program pursuits, translating customer requirements into actionable system designs and technical roadmaps.

Technical Director / Software Solutions Architect — Mission Solutions & Services Division at ManTech International, Inc. (2007-01 – 2016-01)

Directed federal software engineering programs ranging from $10M to $100M+ in contract value, leading teams of 3–7 engineers through full development lifecycles. Contributed to successful DHS contract capture, providing technical architecture and solutioning support for business development pursuits.

Software Architect / Program Technical Lead — GNISE/DEE Program (DISA) at ManTech International, Inc. (2007-01 – 2016-01)

Inherited a troubled 60+ person program and executed a full technical and operational turnaround. Identified and resolved critical team and infrastructure issues, redesigned the development environment to a fully virtualized architecture, and reduced developer onboarding time from 3 months to 3 days. Established standards-based interviewing and selection processes, stabilized delivery cadence, and achieved consistent quarterly software releases for the duration of the program.

Principal Engineer & Team Lead at AOL (1996-01 – 2007-01)

Senior Software Engineer at AnvStream (1993-01 – 1996-01)

Senior Software Engineer at Universal Systems (1993-01 – 1996-01)

Senior Software Engineer at Vector Research (1993-01 – 1996-01)

Bachelor of Arts in Computer and Information Science – University of Delaware