Director of Engineering

Director of Operations Engineering – Troubleshooting & Yield

Do you have the following skills, experience and drive to succeed in this role Find out below.

AT3 Staffing is partnering with a well-established aerospace and defense manufacturer located near the South Burlington, VT area to identify a highly technical engineering leader who can build and lead a dedicated Troubleshooting & Yield organization within a complex manufacturing environment. This role will be responsible for developing and establishing a defined team to recover failed hardware quickly, identify why failures are occurring, and eliminate the recurring problems that are impacting manufacturing yield.

This is not a traditional engineering management or continuous improvement position. It is an opportunity for a technically deep problem solver to build an organization around a capability that has a direct and measurable impact on manufacturing performance. This leader will bring greater structure, accountability, and technical rigor to the process—establishing a focused organization capable of rapidly diagnosing difficult failures while driving permanent corrective action.

This role is ideal for someone who has personally worked through complex hardware failures and knows how to move from ambiguous symptoms to demonstrated root cause. The successful candidate will be comfortable moving between the manufacturing floor, failed hardware, test equipment, engineering data, and senior leadership to drive results.

Key Responsibilities

Failed Hardware Recovery

• Build and establish a dedicated process for managing hardware that fails manufacturing or acceptance testing, escalation criteria, and response expectations for unresolved technical issues.
• Lead rapid diagnosis, troubleshooting, repair/rework, retest, and return of failed hardware to production.
• Reduce troubleshooting cycle time and failed work-in-process while maintaining production commitments.
• Develop standardized troubleshooting methodologies, diagnostic decision trees, and institutional knowledge around recurring failure signatures.
• Identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing and test recovery processes.

Yield Improvement & Root Cause

• Own the site's highest-impact manufacturing yield and recurring failure problems.
• Establish a disciplined approach to problem definition, hypothesis development, experimentation, root-cause identification, corrective action, and validation.
• Use data and Pareto analysis to focus engineering resources on the failure modes with the greatest operational impact.
• Lead complex investigations involving electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, supplier, and test-related variables.
• Drive permanent corrective actions rather than relying on repeated hardware recovery or rework.
• Improve first-pass yield while reducing recurring defects, rework, scrap, troubleshooting hours, and test-cycle time.
• Establish and monitor meaningful performance metrics, including first-pass yield, failure recurrence, failed-unit turnaround time, time-to-root-cause, failed WIP, and corrective-action effectiveness.

Technical Leadership

• Personally engage in the site's most challenging technical investigations and failure-analysis activities.
• Establish a culture based on structured experimentation, data-driven decision making, demonstrated root cause rather than trial-and-error troubleshooting, and the ability to challenge assumptions that are not supported by evidence.
• Maintain clear ownership and momentum on technical investigations through final resolution.
• Build standard work, troubleshooting methodologies, and institutional knowledge around known failure modes.
• Partner closely with Manufacturing Engineering, Test Engineering, Sustaining Engineering, Quality, Design Engineering, Supply Chain, and other technical organizations to resolve complex issues.

Organizational Development

• Build and lead a focused Troubleshooting & Yield organization consisting of engineers and experienced technicians, establish the team's operating model, priorities, metrics, escalation processes, and technical standards.
• Determine the appropriate balance between rapid hardware recovery and longer-term engineering efforts focused on permanent yield improvement.
• Create strong collaboration across engineering and manufacturing functions while maintaining clear accountability within the Troubleshooting & Yield organization.
• Develop the organization's technical capabilities and help determine its long-term structure as recurring failures are eliminated and troubleshooting demand decreases.

What We're Looking For

Experience in one or more of the following environments is highly relevant:

• Aerospace and defense manufacturing
• Complex electromechanical products
• Electronics, PCBAs, or CCAs
• Avionics or electronic controls
• Motors, actuators, sensors, or similar hardware
• High-reliability manufacturing
• Semiconductor or other yield-intensive manufacturing environments

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 10+ years of engineering experience in a complex manufacturing environment.
• Significant hands-on experience with troubleshooting, failure analysis, root-cause investigation, and/or manufacturing yield improvement.
• Demonstrated success solving difficult technical problems and delivering measurable improvements in manufacturing performance.
• Strong understanding of structured problem-solving and root-cause methodologies such as DOE, fault-tree analysis, 8D, Kepner-Tregoe, statistical analysis, or equivalent approaches.
• Demonstrated ability to develop engineers and technicians into stronger technical problem solvers.
• Strong analytical, communication, and decision-making skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Electrical Engineering background or significant experience troubleshooting complex electrical or electromechanical products.
• Aerospace and defense manufacturing experience.
• Experience with production acceptance testing and automated test equipment.
• Experience troubleshooting intermittent or difficult-to-reproduce failures.
• Experience building or transforming a troubleshooting, failure-analysis, or yield-focused organization.
• Experience in a high-mix, high-complexity manufacturing environment.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Manufacturing, Test, Quality, Design, and Sustaining Engineering organizations. xhyhwjd

Leadership Profile

The successful candidate will be:

• Highly technical, intellectually curious, urgent and results-oriented
• Hands-on and comfortable working directly on the manufacturing floor
• Data-driven and rigorous in evaluating evidence
• Decisive while remaining disciplined in technical investigation
• Comfortable challenging assumptions and established thinking
• Capable of creating structure in ambiguous situations
• Credible with experienced engineers, technicians, and manufacturing leaders
• Focused on teaching others how to solve problems, not simply providing the answers

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 6–12 months, this leader will establish a visibly stronger and more disciplined troubleshooting operating model across the site.

Success will include:

• Reduced failed-unit troubleshooting turnaround time
• Reduced failed work-in-process
• Improved first-pass yield
• Elimination of major recurring failure modes
• Reduced engineering hours spent on reactive troubleshooting
• Clear ownership and escalation of unresolved technical problems
• Increased troubleshooting and failure-analysis capability across the engineering and technician population
• Improved collaboration between Manufacturing, Test, Quality, Sustaining Engineering, and other technical functions

Compensation:

$150,000 - $250,000