Director, Engineering Excellence & Enablement

The role

Lead the engineering operating system, planning processes, and engineering excellence initiatives for the engineering organization. Work with the VP of Engineering and cross-functional leaders to turn company and product strategy into scalable engineering capabilities.

What you will do

• Partner with the VP of Engineering to translate business and product strategy into engineering capabilities, operating models and execution plans.
• Develop and evolve the engineering operating system, including planning, governance, decision-making and organizational rhythms.
• Identify capability gaps and recommend investments in people, processes, tooling and organizational structure.
• Define and drive engineering excellence initiatives on developer productivity, quality, reliability and continuous improvement.
• Establish engineering effectiveness metrics and dashboards.
• Establish and facilitate engineering operating cadences, including strategic and quarterly planning and roadmap reviews.
• Drive accountability for execution and resolve organizational bottlenecks.
• Lead complex, cross-functional enterprise engineering initiatives, including AI enablement, developer experience and technical governance.
• Coordinate executive communications, status reporting, risk management and stakeholder engagement for enterprise programs.
• Partner with engineering leaders to improve organizational health and leadership maturity.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of engineering leadership, technical program management, engineering operations or related experience.
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale cross-functional initiatives in complex technology organizations.
• Experience establishing engineering operating models, governance, planning processes and execution frameworks.
• Strong understanding of software engineering organizations, Agile development, DevOps and engineering metrics in the Aerospace & Defense industry.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders without direct authority.
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, organizational and executive presentation skills.
• Strong analytical mindset with experience using data to drive organizational improvements.
• Must have a cleared background and may be subject to a reference check.

Nice to have

• Experience partnering directly with VP or C-level technology executives.
• Experience scaling engineering organizations through rapid growth or transformation.
• Familiarity with developer productivity and organizational effectiveness measurement.

Benefits

• Benefits for full-time regular employees.
• Bonus for full-time regular employees.
• Equity for full-time regular employees.
• Temporary benefits package for temporary employees, applicable after 60 days of employment.

Before you apply

• All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
• Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits.
• Pay depends on factors such as skill set, experience, licenses and certifications, and work location.

About the company

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company that builds intelligent systems to protect service members and civilians. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation technologies.