Director of Engineering

Key Duties and Responsibilities Engineering Organization and Team Development Build, organize, mentor, and retain a high-performing multidisciplinary engineering team with clear ownership for new product development, product sustainment, and technical excellence. Develop engineering leaders and technical experts who can independently manage programs, make sound technical decisions, and collaborate across the business. Establish capacity plans, role clarity, resource allocation, succession plans, budgets, and development paths that support the product portfolio and long-term business strategy. Create a culture of accountability, curiosity, practical innovation, disciplined execution, continuous learning, and customer-focused problem solving. Lead through the team by setting direction, removing barriers, reviewing outcomes, and developing capability rather than becoming the primary individual contributor. New Product Development and Commercialization Lead the engineering organization from product concept through design, prototyping, validation, industrialization, launch, and post-launch stabilization. Ensure disciplined execution of APQP, design reviews, verification and validation, risk management, change control, documentation, and manufacturing readiness. Guide the development of manufacturable products using sheet metal, electrical systems, refrigeration systems, embedded controllers, firmware, sensors, connectivity, and related technologies. Partner with Manufacturing and Supply Chain to ensure designs can be produced consistently, efficiently, safely, and at the required quality, volume, cost, and margin. Bring products to market with clear ownership, launch criteria, technical support plans, and feedback loops for rapid post-launch learning. Product Sustainment and Continuous Improvement Build the team and operating model responsible for the long-term performance and sustainability of released products. Improve product quality, reliability, serviceability, manufacturability, availability, compliance, cost, and margin throughout the product lifecycle. Use customer feedback, warranty data, field service information, manufacturing performance, support trends, and product telemetry to identify and prioritize improvements. Lead root-cause problem solving, corrective action, value engineering, component lifecycle planning, obsolescence management, and technical debt reduction. Ensure existing products remain supportable, competitive, profitable, and aligned with changing customer and regulatory requirements. Success Measures Engineering portfolio balance and delivery against committed priorities. New product development milestones, APQP gate completion, launch readiness, and time-to-market. Post-launch performance, product adoption, customer outcomes, and revenue or margin contribution. Quality, reliability, warranty, field issue, serviceability, and corrective-action trends. Cost reduction, value engineering, manufacturability, production efficiency, and product margin improvement. Hardware-software integration quality, release coordination, system validation, and connected-product performance. Team capability, leadership development, retention, succession readiness, and employee engagement. Product sustainment health, obsolescence risk, technical debt reduction, and lifecycle supportability.