Veterans Healthcare CTO

GDIT is seeking a Veterans Healthcare CTO with deep Department of Veterans Affairs experience and understanding of existing/emerging commercial technologies. This position will bridge the gap between customer mission needs, GDIT technology solutions, and external technologies. It will drive the business strategy and technical solutions needed to deliver modernization and innovation for our critical customers. This is one of the company's most important customer-facing roles, and it will give you the opportunity to provide strategic direction and to interact with the bleeding-edge technologies that we are bringing to our customers. To be successful in this role you must be able to translate relevant details about technologies into a language that VA personnel appreciate and can be understood by management and other stakeholders.

Timeline:This is a contingent posting, expected to start in August, 2026

HOW Veterans Healthcare CTO WILL MAKE AN IMPACT

As a Veterans Healthcare CTO supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs in Austin, TX, you will help ensure today is safe and tomorrow is smarter. The Veterans Healthcare CTO is responsible for evaluating existing technological solutions, vendors, and processes to identify opportunities for improvement and enhancement, with a focus on introducing new capabilities that meet client needs. This involves conducting thorough analysis and research to determine optimal partnerships and on-contract delivery options, as well as developing and testing rapid prototyping to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of new ideas and capabilities. Additionally, you will collaborate with operational teams to facilitate a seamless transition of new technologies and solutions, ensuring long-term success for Veterans Affairs mission objectives.

• Serves as the vital link between the Customer, Innovation Board and Operations functions leading:
  • Technology initiatives
  • Technology introductions
  • Integration of technology solution concepts on current programs
  • Technology applications and innovation
• Assist in overall technical resources management, ensuring appropriate resources are at the right place, at the right time
• Tracking status and quality of technical support ensuring technical risks are being proactively addressed and assisting in resolving issues prior to them becoming problems
• Coordinate with Customer and Program leadership ensuring technical resources and solutions are appropriately deployed in support of customer requirements
• Coordinate all technical activities ensuring that technical solutions meet customer need requirements with appropriate technology identified, available, and prepared to support senior government engagements

You will turn a complex multi-vendor environment into a single, measurable platform that delivers visible results for executives, engineers, and end users. By standardizing patterns for cloud, network, identity, observability, and delivery, youll raise availability and security while shortening time-to-value. Your innovations will introduce automation, AIOps, and progressive delivery where they move the metrics. Youll connect reliability and performance to dollars and unit costs, forecast accuracy, and verified savings, so leadership can fund what works and retire what doesnt. Youll make change understandable and easy to adopt.

WHAT YOULL NEED TO SUCCEED:

• Education: Bachelor's Degree. In lieu of a degree, an additional four years of related experience required
• Experience:
  • 15+ years of experience leading and managing complex information technology initiatives
  • 5+ years of Veterans Affairs experience
  • Experience with multiple cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle) to include developing hybrid applications, deploying resilient architectures, migrating data, and extending services to the edge.
  • Demonstrated experience in Research & Development and Rapid Prototyping - capable of decomposing customer problems, identifying technology-based solutions, building proof-of-concept development plan, executing hands-on development, and identifying path to scale.
  • Experience developing and integrating emerging commercial technologies to meet Government security requirements
  • DevSecOps experience deploying cloud and hybrid-cloud solutions with automation, containerization, and Kubernetes technologies.
  • Experience in the development, drafting, and writing of technical design and architecture artifacts.
  • Experience supervising and mentoring technical staff.
  • Executive stewardship of large budgets and teams (100+), including vendor management and modernization investment portfolios
• Technical skills:
  • Firm knowledge across and experience in several of the following areas: Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Managed Services, Cybersecurity, Software Application Development, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science.
  • Enterprise Architecture & Platforms: Reference architectures for data center and cloud; standardized landing zones; identity and network baselines; platform engineering/IDP; Kubernetes/OpenShift; DR/BCP.
  • Service Management & Observability: ITIL 4/ISO 20000 operating model, ServiceNow/ITSM, CMDB/CSDM; observability; SRE/SLOs
  • Security & Compliance: NIST SP 800-53/53B, CSF 2.0, RMF ConMon/OSCAL; NIST 800-207 (Zero Trust) and TIC 3.0; M-21-31 logging; supply-chain/SSDF (SBOM, signed artifacts, provenance).
  • Delivery & Automation: CI/CD with progressive deployment (blue/green, canary, feature flags); GitOps/IaC/policy-as-code; software supply-chain controls.
  • Financial Stewardship: TBM/FinOps unit economics (forecast accuracy, commitment strategies, optimization backlogs, option-year benchmarking)
• Security clearance level: Public Trust
• Skills and abilities:
  • Deep understanding of VA technical approaches specifically related to next generation adoption of Cloud, AI, and Cybersecurity emerging technologies
  • Demonstrated ability to strategize and co-develop solutions that accelerate VA customers' attainment of mission objectives.
  • Executive Communication: Converts telemetry and finance into clear so-what narratives for executives, technical teams, and non-technical stakeholders; crisp decision memos and one-page scorecards.
  • Outcome Orientation: Sets OKRs tied to SLOs/XLAs and unit costs; uses counter-metrics to prevent gaming; publishes trends openly.
  • Talent & Culture: Builds high-performing, diverse teams; mentors leaders; establishes communities of practice; rewards learning from incidents and decommissioning work.
  • Change Leadership: Partners with organizational leaders to make changes understandable and adopted; ensures training, knowledge, and communications land with releases.
  • Vendor & Risk Management: Negotiates SLAs/OLAs, manages interdependencies, and exercises step-in rights when needed; runs scenario planning and continuity drills.
  • Ability to work collaboratively in a dynamic, unstructured environment.
• Location: Hybrid Austin, TX

GDIT IS YOUR PLACE:

• Full-flex work week to own your priorities at work and at home
• 401K with company match
• Comprehensive health and wellness packages
• Internal mobility team dedicated to helping you build your skills and own your career
• Professional growth opportunities including paid education and certifications
• Cutting-edge technology you can learn from
• Rest and recharge with paid vacation and 10 company-paid holidays

If you are energized by leading at federal scale, turning best practice into everyday practice, and delivering measurable improvements in reliability, security, experience, and cost, wed like to meet you.