Director, Engineering Excellence & Enablement

About the role

Shield AI, a venture-backed defense-tech company, is hiring a Director of Engineering Excellence & Enablement in Washington. Reporting to the VP of Engineering, the role improves the effectiveness, efficiency and execution maturity of the engineering organization by partnering with Engineering, Product, Program Management and other leaders to turn company and product strategy into scalable engineering capabilities and operational rhythms.

Key responsibilities

• Translate business and product strategy into engineering capabilities, operating models and execution plans, and develop the engineering operating system (planning, governance, decision-making, organizational rhythms)
• Identify capability gaps and recommend investments in people, processes, tooling and structure
• Drive engineering excellence initiatives on developer productivity, quality, reliability, operational maturity and continuous improvement, and set effectiveness metrics and dashboards
• Establish and run engineering cadences such as quarterly planning, roadmap reviews, leadership meetings, business reviews and retrospectives
• Lead cross-functional engineering initiatives and strategic programs such as AI enablement, developer experience, technical governance and organizational scaling
• Work with engineering leaders to improve organizational health, standardize processes where appropriate and foster a culture of operational excellence and data-informed decisions

Required profile

• 10+ years of engineering leadership, technical program management, engineering operations or related experience
• Proven track record leading large-scale cross-functional initiatives in complex technology organizations
• Experience building engineering operating models, governance, planning processes and execution frameworks
• Ability to influence senior leaders without direct authority, with strong communication, facilitation and executive presentation skills
• Analytical mindset with experience using data to drive organizational improvements

Preferred qualifications

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