Senior Director, Engineering

Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

• Build and lead the engineering and software team for the Group 3 UAS program across flight software, autonomy, flight controls/GNC, ground systems, flight systems, flight sciences, avionics, payloads, and propulsion.
• Define the engineering vision, technical strategy, and system architecture in alignment with the program roadmap, product-line strategy, and long-term technology investments.
• Serve as the senior technical leader, making architectural decisions, managing technical and program risk, and driving execution across subsystems and suppliers.
• Lead organizational planning, workforce strategy, and capability roadmaps for concurrent development, test, and sustainment efforts.
• Drive collaboration across engineering, flight test, operations, program management, supply chain, quality, and production.

Technical Governance & Engineering Excellence

• Establish and improve engineering standards, technical governance, configuration management, documentation practices, CI/CD, automated testing, and modern DevOps practices.
• Drive technical reviews, root-cause analysis, lessons learned, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure compliance with applicable aerospace standards, certification or airworthiness expectations, regulatory requirements, and company engineering policies.

Team Building

• Attract, hire, and retain engineering talent across disciplines.
• Build scalable organizations supporting current and future platforms.
• Foster technical excellence, continuous learning, accountability, and ownership.
• Mentor and develop directors, engineering managers, and technical leads.

Stakeholder & Executive Engagement

• Report progress, risks, and technical decisions to senior leadership, articulating tradeoffs and investment recommendations.
• Interface with external partners, customers, and government stakeholders.
• Support business development and capture activities by defining technical approaches, architectures, and execution plans.

Requirements

• Minimum of 15 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Strong technical background in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and avionics, propulsion, or a closely related discipline.
• Experience building and leading multidisciplinary engineering teams and organizations, including direct managers and technical leaders, across hardware, software, and systems.
• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills with the ability to manage and inspire cross-functional teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven track record of shipping products, navigating development cycles, overcoming obstacles, and delivering high-quality solutions on schedule and in line with customer expectations.