Senior Director of Engineering

Description

This position is responsible for developing and driving global engineering strategy and direction that translates into high-value customer features for the assigned market segment. This role sits at the intersection of innovation, execution, and leadership—responsible for shaping our global product engineering strategy, driving engineering excellence, and delivering transformative solutions that scale across global markets. The Senior Director of Global Engineering oversees the engineering organizations across multiple product platforms and portfolios. This position will ensure that customer needs are met through the launch of innovative products and engineered solutions that position the organization as the best in class to support sales growth. You’ll lead cross-functional teams across engineering, product design, and validation, ensuring alignment with business goals while fostering a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.

A business-oriented mindset is required to effectively lead both a technical and a creative team responsible for developing and launching products on time and within budget, meeting and/or exceeding growth targets.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities:

Managerial Functions

• Ensure team development plans are in place to support short-term and long-term needs of the business.
• Drives personal accountability within the organization through their actions, as well as holds team members accountable and addresses poor performance.
• Identifies emerging talent and strategies for succession planning.
• Demonstrates responsibility for budget and effective utilization of resources – plans and manages resources to maximize results.
• Provides routine executive updates on the status of new product development and pricing activities.
  
  

Strategic Functions

• Develops and implements strategies (technical, design, costing targets) in alignment with corporate objectives and provides a clear sense of direction and focus.
• Leads development of new product design and implementation.
• Oversee the testing and engineering validation of all products to ensure capability and safety.
• Manage all testing methodology and validation resources.
• Leads the development of engineering methodology and methods to ensure the standard design criteria are met with all products.
• Owns the engineering and validation stage-gate process for the global organization, including the execution of projects by Project Management to ensure compliance with requirements.
• Provide leadership and expertise in the development of new products/services/processes, frequently operating at the leading edge of technology.
  
  

Tactical Functions

• Develops, validates, and prioritizes project portfolio plans in collaboration with Sales, Operations, and Product Management.
  
  

Actively evaluate product performance – both financial and functional – to optimize commercial success.

• Establish metrics to measure the success of each product offering and release.
• Critically and logically evaluates the costs, risks, and benefits of alternatives before making decisions.
• Ensure project design reviews are routinely held to ensure compliance with project plans and business case commitments.
• Provide leadership oversight to ensure projects are managed on time, on budget, and to requirements.
• Support current production technical issues, including warranty investigation, plant quality concerns, and customer concerns.
• Provide leadership expertise to individual brands to ensure pricing is commensurate with value realized by customers through innovation and SKU rationalization.
• Explore future opportunities to determine the appropriate VAVE project involvement and rationalization.
  
  

Continuous Improvement

• Drives process improvements through the use of Lean principles and Six Sigma tools.
• Ensures sufficient tools, systems, and processes are available and optimized to maximize team effectiveness.
• Collaborate across the corporation to identify and implement best practices.
• Drive the delivery of processes, systems, and initiatives to reduce engineered costs associated with the product portfolio.
  
  

What We Offer

• Comprehensive Health Benefits: Enjoy medical, dental, and vision coverage for positions of 30+ hours/week.
• Health Savings Account: Benefit from annual employer contributions to your HSA.
• Company-Provided Insurance: We offer life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment coverage, and short-term disability insurance.
• Voluntary Insurance Options: Choose additional coverage for yourself, your spouse, and your children, including critical illness, accident, hospital indemnity, and long-term disability insurance.
• 401(k) Plan: Take advantage of our 401(k) with matching contributions, fully vested from day one.
• Educational Support: Access tuition reimbursement and scholarship opportunities to further your education.
• Lifestyle Reimbursement: Receive a $150 Amazon gift card upon completion of your annual physical.
• Wellness Program: Participate in health coaching, monthly webinars, quarterly challenges, and earn gift card incentives for participation and earning points.
• Safe Work Environment: Work in a clean and safe environment.
• Generous Paid Time Off: Enjoy 14 paid holidays, including a holiday shutdown between Christmas and New Year’s, plus paid vacation available from day one.
• Paid Parental Leave: Take advantage of paid parental leave to support your family.