Director of Engineering

As our Director of Engineering, you’ll lead a growing team at a company whose life safety products—exit signs and emergency lights—help protect people in buildings across the U.S. You’ll coach and develop engineers, strengthen how we plan and execute projects, and use clear KPIs to keep work on track. If you like building strong teams, improving practical processes, and keeping promises to customers, this is a role where your impact will be visible and meaningful.

• Lead the daily activities of the engineering team; clearly communicate priorities, deadlines, and expectations.
• Hold engineers accountable for attendance, punctuality, and meeting commitments
  . Address issues early and constructively.
• Conduct formal performance reviews with engineering team members, setting clear goals, documenting feedback, and following up on development plans over time.
• Run regular 1:1s and team check-ins; provide coaching, feedback, and support when engineers are stuck.
• Maintain a hands‑on presence in design reviews, troubleshooting, and problem‑solving as needed.

• Translate product and business goals into clear engineering plans with phases, milestones, and owners.
• Use a simple, structured development process (phase‑gate with appropriate agile elements) to keep projects organized and on track.
• Ensure work is broken into actionable tasks, documented, and assigned with realistic timelines.
• Run recurring planning and status meetings to review progress, adjust priorities, and capture new work.

• Define and maintain a small set of practical engineering KPIs
  , such as:
  • On‑time completion of milestones/phases
  • Response and resolution time for production/manufacturing issues
  • Volume and status of cross‑functional requests (Ops, Manufacturing, Quoting, Technical Support)
• Keep work visible using simple tools (project boards, trackers, ticket systems); ensure requests and commitments are logged and updated.
• Provide concise, regular updates to the President/leadership with status, risks, and any needs from leadership
  .

• Act as the primary point of contact between Engineering and Operations, Manufacturing, Quoting, and Technical Support for both new and existing products.
• Proactively escalated when the team is blocked:
  • “We’re waiting on X,”
  • “We need more information/resources,”
  • “We are waiting on a decision from you.”
• Ensure cross‑functional requests are followed through to closure and that stakeholders know what to expect and when.

• Manage engineering work for new product development from concept through production release, ensuring targets for performance, cost, and manufacturability are met.
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders to clarify requirements and design intent.
• Ensure ongoing issues with tools, fixtures, drawings, BOMs, and manufacturing processes are triaged and resolved quickly
  .
• Support continuous improvement projects around quality, cost, and throughput as assigned.
• Lead the engineering response to customer care team escalations, from clarifying the issue through corrective action and updates back to the team.

• Maintain and refine the engineering development process so it is understood, followed, and right sized for the organization
  .
• Identify bottlenecks and recurring issues; propose and implement practical improvements to how the team plans, documents, and communicates.
• Promote good habits in documentation, revision control, verification/validation, and change management.

• The engineering team has clear plans and priorities
  ; engineers know what they are working on…