Director of Engineering - Executive Engineering Leadership
Youngstown, Cleveland, OH, and Pittsburgh, PA, are all within commuting distance to the main HQ. Other locations may be considered for those with the right qualifications.
Our client, a Multi-Site industrial equipment company, is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead and elevate a 70+-person engineering organization within a rapidly growing, multi-branch industrial enterprise.
They operate in mission-critical environments. When they don’t perform, their customers’ operations stop. This role carries enterprise-level responsibility. You will unify standards, strengthen technical rigor, modernize workflows, and build a scalable engineering function that supports growth and acquisitions.
The Mandate
Enterprise Engineering Execution
- Establish and enforce engineering standards across all brands and locations
- Improve estimating accuracy and design consistency
- Drive design for manufacturability and installation efficiency
- Strengthen risk management across design and documentation
- Partner with Sales and Operations to protect margin and performance
Build a High-Performance Engineering Organization
- Lead and develop a distributed team of 70+ engineers
- Define roles, prioritization processes, and performance scorecards
- Strengthen succession planning and career development
- Build a culture grounded in safety, accountability, and technical excellence
Drive Continuous Improvement & Scalability
- Implement a unified engineering process
- Standardize tools, templates, and workflows
- Leverage historical project data and AI-enabled tools to improve estimating and applications engineering
- Support the integration of acquired businesses into a harmonized engineering model
What Success Looks Like
- Standardized engineering practices across locations
- Improved margin performance through estimating discipline
- Reduced design cycle times
- Strong cross-functional alignment with Sales and Operations
- A stronger engineering leadership bench
The Ideal Profile
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering
- 10+ years leading engineered products or systems design teams
- Experience managing multi-site or matrix organizations
- Strong background in mechanical or structural design environments
- Experience driving standardization and process improvement
- Heavy industrial or crane design experience preferred
- Experience in modernizing engineering workflows using data or AI tools is a plus
Why This Role
- Enterprise authority across 70+ engineers
- Direct impact on growth, scalability, and profitability
- Opportunity to modernize and unify a growing organization
- High visibility within executive leadership
If you are ready to lead engineering at scale and build a function that defines industry performance, we welcome a confidential conversation.
