Director Of Engineering (Hardware And Software)
Chicago, Illinois, Us
Early stage start up. OEM Mfr. of Fire Fighter Tracking Modules for GPS denied environments.Company Leader for all Mechanical, Electrical, Software and Mfg. Teams. Reporting to the CEO and CTO.● Responsible for creating the first Tracking Systems that were delivered to customers (Multiple Fire Depts.).● Accountable for leading all aspects of the product development process from concept to production start up.● Led, mentored, trained & motivated mechanical, electrical & software engineers (17 direct, 3 indirect reports).● Grew the Engineering Team from 10 to 18 Engineers. Recruited the Lead ME, SR EE and SR Emb. SWE.● Provided Mentoring & Industry experts to build up the team: Lead Systems Eng, Product Mgr, Project Mgr ● Created from scratch & implemented the company’s New Product Development (NPD) - Stage Gate Process.● Reduced 2024 CapEx & overall R&D Budgets by approx. 25% to gain critical additional company runway. ● Selected Designs, Materials, Mfg. Processes and Suppliers (USA, China) to cut COGS by 50%+.● Coached & developed SME’s in critical subsystems: Ruggedization , Materials, Prototyping, Mfg. ● Met Build and Customer Demo Schedule Milestones per Plan to provide continuous customer feedback.● Created & Implemented Product Development Processes: Requirements (“Day in the Life”, MVP, PRD), Project Plans, Design Reviews (formal / informal), Design Process, Stage Gate Reviews, System Block Diagram, DHF / DMR / DHR, Change Control, Issue Tracking, Team Structure, Lessons Learned, On-Boarding, Scrum, etc.● Implemented Best Practices of Engineering & Project Mgmt throughout the company: Root cause analysis, Iterative design / Evolutionary prototyping, DFM / DFA, Early reliability testing, High fidelity prototyping, Reuse, Goal Setting / Mini-Milestones, Outsourcing, Risk Mgmt.- Mitigation, Planning-Tracking-Metrics, Lifecycle Model Selection, One Page Project Mgmt. Method, Top 10 Risks / Mitigations, Implemented “Basecamp” Project Mgmt.