Director Product & Engineering Operations

The Product & Engineering Operations team builds and continuously improves the operating model that connects product planning, project execution, development delivery, and organizational decision-making across R&D. The Director of Product & Engineering Operations will own the vision, strategy, priorities, and operating model for the function. This leader will build and lead a team responsible for designing, deploying, measuring, and continuously improving company-wide product and development processes, workflows, systems, and execution mechanisms. Partnering with senior Product and Engineering leadership, the Director will translate business and R&D priorities into scalable operational capabilities and measurable improvements in execution. What will your Job look like? • Build, lead, and develop a high-performing Product & Engineering Operations team, ensuring its structure and capabilities support organizational priorities. • Define and own the strategy and roadmap for operational excellence across Product, Development, Program Management, and Validation organizations. • Establish company-wide product and development operating models, processes, and governance mechanisms, with clear ownership and accountability. • Partner with senior Product and Engineering leaders to improve execution effectiveness, predictability, and organizational efficiency. • Direct a portfolio of strategic initiatives spanning workflows, planning systems, reporting systems, ALM tools, automation, and AI-enabled productivity. • Prioritize operational investments and team resources based on business impact, organizational needs, and adoption readiness. • Ensure processes support ASPICE and other applicable development standards while remaining practical and efficient for engineering teams. • Establish KPI frameworks, monitoring systems, executive dashboards, and operational review cadences that provide visibility into organizational health and support decision-making. • Use data and operational insights to identify systemic bottlenecks, prioritize improvements, and deliver measurable outcomes. • Lead organizational change, secure leadership alignment, and ensure sustained adoption of new ways of working. • Represent Product & Engineering Operations in senior leadership forums, communicating priorities, results, risks, and decisions requiring executive support • Set clear strategic direction, priorities, and accountability, with measurable success and continuous improvement. • Build strong team capabilities across process design, analytics, tooling, change management, and operational execution. • Drive cross-functional alignment and senior-level influence while balancing process discipline, compliance, and long-term capabilities with execution speed and business value. All you need is: • 10+ years of experience in Program Management, Engineering Operations, Product Operations, Development Leadership, or related functions, including substantial leadership responsibility. • Prior hands-on experience in Product Management or Software Development. • Proven experience building and leading teams and owning a function or significant cross-organizational portfolio. • Demonstrated success defining and executing company-wide operational strategies, process transformations, or systems initiatives with measurable results. • Strong understanding of software development and product development best practices. • Experience working within or alongside ASPICE, ISO 15288, ISO 26262, or comparable development frameworks, and translating their requirements into scalable ways of working. • Strong systems and tooling orientation, including planning, tracking, reporting, workflow, or ALM platforms. • Experience establishing KPI frameworks, dashboards, monitoring systems, and executive operational reviews. • Demonstrated ability to align senior stakeholders, manage competing priorities, and drive organizational change. • Exceptional analytical, stakeholder-management, and executive communication skills.