Director of Engineering

About Retrotec

Retrotec is the world leader in airflow diagnostic instruments. Our products are the standard tools used by energy auditors, building scientists, raters, and HVAC professionals worldwide to measure airtightness, ventilation, and building performance — and to certify residential, commercial, duct, and large-enclosure construction against the building codes and standards that govern modern construction.

The product family spans variable-speed blower door fans for residential, commercial, and large-building airtightness testing; multi-channel digital manometers; duct testing systems; precision calibration chambers; the rCloud software platform for test management, reporting, and fleet oversight; and Android-based field applications used on the job site by our customers. Behind the products is a broad technology stack — embedded firmware on PIC
32 and ESP
32, Linux on Banana Pi Zero, mobile and desktop applications written in Dart/Flutter, C#, Java, and Python — that this role will help shape and steward.

Headquartered in Everson, WA — just outside Bellingham — we re a stable, profitable, employee-focused company that combines deep engineering rigor with a hands-on, collaborative culture. Our work directly enables more efficient, healthier buildings around the world.

The Director of Engineering is the senior technical leader at Retrotec, responsible for the strategy, execution, and day-to-day performance of our engineering organization. This person owns the full product development lifecycle — from concept and design through validation, regulatory compliance, and the handoff to production — and is accountable for delivering reliable, accurate, and innovative diagnostic instruments on schedule and on budget.

Reporting to the Co-CEOs and managing a cross-disciplinary team of 8–10 engineers spanning mechanical, electronics, embedded firmware, and software, this leader serves as the bridge between the executive team and the engineering organization. As one of the Co-CEOs shifts focus toward business development, this role takes ownership of the engineering operating system: running weekly engineering meetings, capturing decisions and action items, surfacing blockers, planning and resource-loading projects, generating realistic time estimates, and driving the engineering-to-production transition in close partnership with the production manager.

This is a hands-on leadership role, roughly a 50/50 blend of technical work and people leadership. The right person is equally comfortable reviewing a circuit schematic, code-reviewing a Python or C# pull request, debugging a firmware release, working with the production team on a tooling or fixture issue, and presenting a product roadmap to the Co-CEOs. We re looking for someone who is friendly and easygoing on the surface but takes initiative and finishes what they start — a builder, not just an administrator.

• Own the technical roadmap for Retrotec s hardware, firmware, and software product lines, including blower door and duct testing systems, digital manometers, calibration equipment, and the rCloud platform.
• Lead, mentor, and grow the engineering team across mechanical, electronics, embedded firmware, and software disciplines. Current stack includes embedded firmware on PIC
  32 and ESP
  32, Linux on Banana Pi Zero, mobile and desktop apps in Dart/Flutter, C#, Java, and Python, and Android-platform field applications. Set clear objectives, conduct code and design reviews, and develop technical talent.
• Run the engineering operating cadence: chair regular engineering meetings, capture action items, drive them to closure between meetings, and surface blockers to the executive team before they become fires.
• Build and maintain project plans, time estimates, and resource allocation across concurrent projects. Make tradeoff calls when reality diverges from plan.
• Drive the full new-product development lifecycle — requirements, design reviews, prototyping, validation, regulatory compliance, pilot runs, and design release — so projects move cleanly from concept to completion in production.
• Maintain…