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DIRECTOR, FHIR TECHNICAL ECOSYSTEM
HL7 International is a global, member-driven non-profit dedicated to advancing healthcare data interoperability. The organization is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an international Standards Development Organization (SDO). Our widely adopted standards and frameworks are the foundation of health information exchange worldwide, enabling data to be shared, accessed, and applied to improve health outcomes and system performance.
We are entering an exciting new chapter of growth and transformation. Our strategic vision emphasizes brand recognition, revenue diversification and growth, and the ability to innovate in response to emerging healthcare challenges.
Position Summary
FHIR's technical foundations, the build, validation, and publication tooling, the publication infrastructure, the implementation-guide framework, and the body of knowledge and practice that keeps all of it working, need sustained and resilient ownership. The Director, FHIR Technical Ecosystem provides that ownership.
Working under the direction of the FHIR Product Director, the Director keeps the technical machinery of FHIR dependable and keeps the knowledge behind it distributed and documented. A defining purpose of the role is continuity: reducing the ecosystem's dependence on any one person by building documented practices, distributed technical ownership, and succession into every critical technical function.
The Director is a member of the Standards Development division and reports to the CSDO, while coordinating closely with the FHIR Product Director on functional and technical priorities, and the Deputy FHIR Product Director on process and terminology. The Director also works closely with senior leadership on business development initiatives, supports the Standards Implementation division as a technical subject-matter expert, and coordinates with the Contributor Engagement Lead on community.
This is a remote position. Travel to HL7 meetings and selected national and international industry events is required.
Key Responsibilities
Tooling, publication, and build infrastructure
Set direction, resourcing, and resilience strategy for FHIR build, validation, and publication tooling and infrastructure, against the requirements defined by the Product Director, so these remain dependable foundations for the community.
Ensure the tooling and infrastructure are actively maintained through engineers, contractors, or HL7 technical services, with no critical component dependent on a single person.
Ensure the resourcing and resilience of terminology services infrastructure, coordinating with the Deputy FHIR Product Director, who leads FHIR terminology ecosystem architecture.
Standards-development infrastructure and the community's workflow
Provide direction for the integrated set of infrastructure the community relies on to develop standards, and keep the connections between its parts coherent: the FHIR publication infrastructure, the GitHub repositories that hold the specifications and their source, the build infrastructure that turns that source into published output, the JIRA infrastructure that Work Groups use for balloting comments and issue resolution, and the documentation platforms such as Confluence that hold process and guidance.
Ensure these systems work together as a dependable pipeline from proposal to comment to resolution to build to publication, so that a Work Group's development activity moves through the toolchain without friction or gaps.
Treat this toolchain as the connective tissue between the community's standards-development work and the published specification, owning its health, integration, and evolution, and coordinating with the Deputy FHIR Product Director on the process that runs on top of it and with the Contributor Engagement Lead on the contributor experience of using it.
Anticipate how a change in one system, for example repository structure, issue-tracker workflow, or build process, affects the others and the Work Groups that depend on them, and manage that change so the community is supported.
Implementation-guide framework and quality
Own the implementation-guide authoring framework, quality expectations, and consistency standards across guides, producing specific implementation guides for adoption programs, and supporting the implementers who use them.
Technical continuity and capability Establish documented practices, distributed technical ownership, and succession across critical FHIR technical functions, reducing dependence on any single individual.
Capture and maintain the operating knowledge behind FHIR's tooling and publication so it remains accessible to current and future contributors.
Contribute FHIR subject-matter expertise to HL7 education and certification.
Support to Standards Implementation
Serve as a senior FHIR technical subject-matter expert to the Standards Implementation division's funded work, grants, and consulting.
Business Development
Co-lead business development initiatives with other members of HL7’s leadership and management.
People, program, and operational leadership
Supervise and develop the technical and program staff responsible for FHIR tooling and publication, setting priorities, managing performance, and building a collaborative, high-trust team.
Manage budgets, timelines, risks, and dependencies for FHIR technical operations.
Coordination
Coordinate with the FHIR Product Director on requirements and priorities, the Deputy FHIR Product Director on process and terminology, the Contributor Engagement Lead on community, and the Standards Implementation division on adoption.
Qualifications and Experience
Substantial experience in health IT, interoperability, and standards, including technical program and people leadership.
Strong understanding of FHIR tooling, publication, and the specification lifecycle.
A track record of building resilient technical operations and reducing key-person risk through documentation, distributed ownership, and succession.
Experience directing software and tooling maintenance, whether through employees, contractors, or shared technical services.
Excellent written communication and the ability to make technical operations understandable to technical and non-technical audiences.
Demonstrated commitment to open, community-driven development.
Track record of successful business development initiatives.
Leadership Attributes
Stewardship: motivated by the long-term health and resilience of FHIR's technical foundations.
Team and organizational leadership: skilled communicator, motivated to provide team leadership, clear direction and guidance to attain results.
Systems thinking and acting: able to see the whole tooling and publication chain and where it is fragile, and intervene accordingly.
Collaboration: leads through influence and coordination across roles and divisions.
Innovation and process improvement: Encourages and enables the development and adoption of novel technologies, and promotes continuous process improvement.
