Head Of Engineering

Airbus is an international pioneer in the aerospace industry. We are a leader in designing, manufacturing, and delivering aerospace products, services, and solutions to customers on a global scale. We aim for a better-connected, safer, and more prosperous world.

A commercial aircraft manufacturer, with Space and Defense as well as Helicopters Divisions, Airbus is the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe and a worldwide leader.

Airbus has built on its strong European heritage to become truly international - with roughly 180 locations and 12,000 direct suppliers globally. The company has aircraft and helicopter final assembly lines across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and has achieved a more than sixfold order book increase since 2000.

Airbus Robotics designs, manufactures, and installs automated assembly and control systems for research and industrial manufacturing applications in the aerospace industry. Our tools are used in the direct manufacture of large-scale aerospace structures. We have a dynamic, talented, and collaborative engineering team and we seek people who are energized to develop ingenious yet simple solutions to solve our customer's toughest problems.

The Head of Engineering reports directly to the President and leads Airbus Robotics' team of Engineers in the creation and maintenance of mechanical, electrical, software and systems components. As needed, they will also directly design, implement, test, and troubleshoot problems with software-driven electromechanical equipment to ensure proper functionality. A successful candidate will capably balance engineering tasks while also overseeing their team, team's content, and deliverables.

Duties of the Head of Engineering:

Engineering Management

• Manage a team of 3 Engineering Managers, who oversee a total of 15-20 engineers, from a variety of disciplines (Software, Mechanical, Electrical, and Systems), with enough knowledge and understanding in each field to support technical problems and track progress.
• Oversee the maintenance of mechanical, electrical, and software design infrastructure (SolidWorks/PDM/GIT/Cloudforge) and documentation such as drawings, schematic diagrams, layout documents, and code.
• Review, organize, maintain, approve, and deliver drawings, schematics, BOMs, mechanical designs, and Printed Circuit Board Assemblies. Typical tools include SolidWorks, Altium, and MultiSim.
• Support quality assurance testing of mechanical, electrical, controls, and software systems.
• Troubleshoot and resolve mechanical, electrical, and software issues associated with corrective and preventive maintenance. This includes work with common tools such as DMMs, oscilloscopes, etc.
• Read, analyze & interpret documents, such as procedures, mechanical drawings, manuals, wiring diagrams, blueprints & schematics.
• Attend engineering review meetings, providing guidance on the company vision and principles of technology development.
• Draft internal company standards and policies as needs arise to improve quality and efficiency of the engineering team.

Team Management

• Identify and surface hiring needs and assist in the process of creating or reviewing job descriptions, filtering applications, interviewing candidates, and contributing to discussions for selecting new employees within the Engineering team, or for related teams as necessary.
• Onboard new employees within the team including identifying current and future workloads. Track new employee progress and provide guidance to improve priorities and efficiencies. Identify and enable training opportunities that are high value additions to employee skills.
• Communicate with upper management if demands on self-and/or team members are over the established expectations for an extended period. This includes work volume and level of difficulty.
• During the annual review process, drive the timely completion of employee's self-evaluations, manager evaluations, and meeting with each employee to discuss reviews.
• Periodically throughout the year, ensure employee goals are reviewed and progress against these goals is tracked and achieved.
• Address performance issues for any employee on the Engineering team, including clearly defining the issues in the Performance Improvement Plans (PIP) document, devising a clear improvement plan, and following any company policies available to rectify the issue.
• Support or lead in the process of terminating employment of direct reports as needed.
• Reach out to Human Resources when situations arise where a clear course of direction is unknown, especially in cases of a breach in established company policies.

Leadership

• Inspire and direct employees within the Engineering team, ensuring individual priorities and tasks are aligned with project and company needs.
• Understand team dynamics and individual needs and delegate work assignments to ensure well balanced workloads.
• Coordinate and communicate with other Executives, Team Managers and Program Managers to ensure projects are completed on time and to a high degree of quality.
• Provide leadership during technical evaluations of new systems across all technical disciplines.
• Actively participate in management meetings, including those used to discuss company-wide priorities, project status, and upcoming work.
• Serve as a mentor to employees and help foster development of their careers and skillsets.

Additionally, the below items are skills and tasks which may be required of the Head of Engineering when the need arises:

• Electrical and Controls Engineering
  • Research, select, and apply sensors, communication technologies, or control devices for motion control, position sensing, pressure sensing, or electronic communication.
  • Develop electrical design documentation such as schematic diagrams and layout documents.
  • Bring up, troubleshoot, and launch PCBA designs into production.
  • Repair, install, and calibrate electronic and pneumatic instruments.
  • Tune motor controllers and evaluate system performance.
• Software Engineering
  • Develop architecture and software for embedded systems, HMIs, and peripherals.
  • Understand, develop, and debug low-level software routines as well as system-wide software architectures.
  • Perform application programming on specialized platforms with applications in automation and robotics.
  • Offer support and guidance on algorithm development, particularly for control-related software.
• Mechanical Engineering
  • Research, design, evaluate, install, operate, and maintain mechanical products, equipment, systems, and processes to meet requirements, applying knowledge of engineering principles.
  • Make basic drawings and have the capacity to prototype for proof-of-concept.
  • Work directly with in-house machinist to ensure engineering designs are scheduled for completion and properly fabricated.
• Commissioning
  • Perform system setup and commissioning of company products for deployment at customer sites or at company's workshop.
  • Perform on-site installations, system setups, troubleshooting and limited repairs onsite as well as in the office.
  • Create documentation, detailed instructions, drawings, or specifications to tell others about how devices, parts, equipment, or structures are to be fabricated, constructed, assembled, modified, maintained, or used.
  • Provide direct phone and email support for new and difficult
  • Serve as liaison with customers to resolve problems and
  • Provide customer on-site and in office trainings for operators and maintenance.

• Prototype, Production and Applications
  • Design, test, install, and maintain small-scale electronic equipment, applying principles and techniques of electrical engineering to accomplish.
  • Work with Mechanical, Software, Electrical and System Engineers and Project Management to ensure a successful product.
  • Develop documentation related to the functionality, usage, calibration, maintenance, user-programming and troubleshooting of the company product.
  • Develop product technical specifications and specifications for the customer.
  • Maintain production equipment and machinery.
  • Set up and operate production equipment in accordance with current good manufacturing practices and standard operating procedures.
  • Plan or conduct experimental, environmental, operational, or stress tests on automated assembly prototypes.
  • Work with operations manager and engineers to ensure products are built to spec.
  • Contribute to technical reports or other documentation, such as, handbooks or bulletins, for use by engineering staff, management, or customers.

The ideal candidate would have:

• Minimum of 10 years related engineer and management experience.
• A Bachelor of Engineering such as Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics. Master's degree preferred.
• Excellent skills with productivity tools such as Microsoft Office, MS Project, and Google Docs
• Working knowledge of C, C++, C#, LabVIEW, and JavaScript. Python and Perl an asset.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to synthesize data and change outcomes.
• The interpersonal skills and knowledge to work with a development team that spans multiple disciplines (electrical, software, mechanical, systems engineering).
• Bias for action and self-motivated problem solver
• Experience in life cycle support from product development, production introduction to sustaining.
• Work well with teams and other functions.
• The ability to communicate information and ideas, in writing and orally, so others will clearly understand.

As a leader in our field, Airbus in America provides relocation assistance for qualified positions and a comprehensive compensation and benefits package.

Airbus in America provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetics, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status or other legally protected status. In addition to federal law requirements, Airbus in America complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, demotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, benefits and training.

Airbus in America expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetics, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status or other legally protected status. Improper interference with the ability of Airbus' employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.

As a matter of policy, Airbus does not sponsor visas for US positions unless specified. Only applicants with current work authorization will be considered.

Airbus does not offer tenured or guaranteed employment. Either the company or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice.