Executive Director of Engineering

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nCakeBoxx Technologies is seeking an experienced, results-driven Executive Director of Engineering to join the company's executive leadership team and lead the company’s engineering organization through its next exciting stage of growth. This is a hands-on experienced executive leadership role for an exceptional engineering professional who combines deep technical judgment, strong people leadership, executive communication skills, manufacturing experience, and a proven ability to build engineering capability and capacity. The Director of Engineering will serve as CakeBoxx’s principal engineering authority. This leader will establish the technical direction, engineering standards, review criteria, quality gates, product-development priorities, and organizational capabilities required to support increasing customer demand and deliver scalable, manufacturable, mission-ready Systems Within SystemsTM solutions. CakeBoxx is an “INNOVATION” company and market leader in intermodal container and platform design and solution development. We enjoy a unique position of intellectual property and know-how in global and domestic container sector, developing complex, customer-specific solutions—not standard products. The Director of Engineering will provide executive oversight for the complete engineering and production lifecycle of these solutions, from customer requirements and concept development through design, manufacturing, inspection, testing, delivery, and continuous improvement. The Director will lead a dedicated, multi-disciplinary engineering and operations team, including specialists in Quality, Design, Manufacturing, Production, Container Architecture, Testing, and Systems Engineering, along with a dedicated team of engineers who design and develop the solutions.The Director will ensure that this team has clear priorities, disciplined processes, appropriate technical reviews, defined responsibilities, and the resources necessary to design, build, manufacture, inspect, test, and deliver customer solutions. The successful candidate will have broad command of the disciplines involved in CakeBoxx manufactured solutions, including structural, materials, mechanical, manufacturing, quality, production, systems, thermal, environmental, electrical, transportation, and deployment engineering. They must be able to independently review engineering work, challenge assumptions, identify technical and organizational risk, make sound tradeoffs, and provide clear strategic direction while remaining grounded in engineering detail. The Director of Engineering will closely monitor production schedules, engineering milestones, manufacturing readiness, supplier performance, quality results, material availability, and delivery risk across multiple concurrent programs. This person will identify emerging issues early, direct corrective action, remove barriers, and ensure that CakeBoxx delivers technically sound, high-quality products on time and in accordance with customer requirements. This leader is both the strategic architect and the operational captain of CakeBoxx engineering. The Director will guide the company’s long-term technical direction while ensuring that every active customer build is managed with urgency, engineering rigor, quality discipline, manufacturability, and reliable execution. They will be tuned into emerging technologies, materials, techniques and strategic market direction to drive competitive advantage. Key Responsibilities This is a full scope executive leadership position with an emerging market leader in aerospace, defense and energy logistics solutions. · Serve as CakeBoxx’s principal engineering authority and strategic technical advisor to company leadership. · Provide executive leadership, technical direction, and performance accountability for Design, Quality, Manufacturing, Production, Container Architecture,Test and Systems Engineering functions. · Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable managers, technical leads, senior engineers, and cross-functional engineering personnel. · Establish the engineering vision, technical standards, engineering policies, decision rights, review expectations, quality gates, and approval authorities needed to support company strategy and customer commitments. · Manage roles, responsibilities, technical review requirements, escalation paths, quality gates, and approval authorities across the engineering organization. · Ensure Quality, Manufacturing, Production, Container Architecture, Design, and Systems Engineering personnel work together as an integrated team to convert customer requirements into complete, controlled, manufacturable, testable, and deployable solutions. · Oversee multiple concurrent customer builds, product-development efforts, and engineering projects from purchase order and customer kickoff through requirements definition, engineering, manufacturing, inspection, testing, delivery, and post-delivery improvement. · Ensure every project has defined technical scope, requirements, ownership, schedule, risk visibility, engineering deliverables, review gates, and documented approval criteria. · Ensure experienced engineers provide substantive engineering expertise throughout each build, including requirements analysis, concept development, design decisions, CAD modeling, drawings, calculations, material selection, manufacturability review, supplier coordination, inspection, testing, and configuration control. · Direct and review engineering checks, design reviews, verification activities, manufacturing-readiness assessments, documentation, and approval steps required at every phase of each program. · Establish the review framework for requirements, engineering concepts, system architectures, calculations, CAD models, General Arrangement drawings, bills of material, specifications, supplier submittals, test plans, inspection requirements, and production changes. · Review and approve top-level engineering outputs for high-risk, novel, strategically important, high-value, or customer-sensitive programs. · Lead or participate in executive technical reviews to assess design maturity, program risk, product performance, manufacturing readiness, engineering capacity, supplier capability, quality performance, and customer commitments. · Closely monitor production schedules, engineering milestones, manufacturing progress, supplier commitments, material availability, inspection results, test readiness, and delivery dates across multiple concurrent builds. · Establish a recurring executive review cadence for active programs to assess schedule health, technical maturity, production readiness, quality performance, supplier status, cost exposure, resource capacity, and customer-delivery risk. · Identify potential schedule, quality, manufacturing, technical, supplier, or integration problems early; assign ownership, remove barriers, direct corrective action, and verify that issues are resolved. · Ensure production schedules reflect approved design maturity, material availability, manufacturing capacity, supplier lead times, inspection requirements, test needs, and customer delivery commitments. Ensure products are delivered on time, meet approved engineering requirements, and conform to defined quality, inspection, test, documentation, and customer-acceptance criteria. · Apply manufacturing engineering expertise to ensure CakeBoxx designs are practical to fabricate, assemble, inspect, test, transport, deploy, and support. · Lead Design for Manufacturability reviews with suppliers and internal teams, resolving issues involving materials, tolerances, tooling, forming, welding, assembly sequence, inspection methods, cost, capacity, and lead time. · Ensure supplier recommendations are evaluated and formally controlled, and that accepted changes are incorporated into CakeBoxx’s controlled technical documentation before production. · Establish, enforce, and continuously improve CakeBoxx’s engineering-to-manufacturing process across all active programs. · Ensure each responsible engineer defines and documents complete product requirements, including configuration, dimensions, interfaces, materials, loads, performance, applicable standards, and acceptance criteria. · Ensure each project has a complete, controlled, revision-managed Technical Data Package, including General Arrangement drawings, CAD models, bills of material, calculations, specifications, fabrication drawings, assembly drawings, inspection criteria, test requirements, and other documentation required to define and produce the product. · Ensure controlled CakeBoxx design packages are submitted to manufacturing partners for Design for Manufacturability review. · Ensure manufacturer-prepared DFM, shop, manufacturing, or production drawings are treated as supplier submittals—not as replacements for CakeBoxx’s master design package. · Ensure responsible engineers review and formally disposition all supplier comments, DFM recommendations, deviations, and drawings. Suppliers may not alter approved designs without documented CakeBoxx engineering authorization. · Ensure accepted supplier and DFM changes are incorporated into controlled CakeBoxx drawings, models, bills of material, calculations, specifications, and related engineering documentation. · Prevent production release until the responsible engineer confirms that the master CakeBoxx design package and supplier production documents agree and the package is formally released for production. · Enforce configuration control after release. No material, dimension, tolerance, weld, finish, component, supplier, or other controlled element may change without written engineering approval and a documented revision record. · Ensure first-article inspection and testing verify that completed units conform to approved drawings, bills of material, specifications, and acceptance criteria before continued production. · Develop and execute an engineering-organization growth plan that expands CakeBoxx’s technical capability, leadership bench, staffing capacity, engineering systems, tools, processes, and supplier integration in step with demand. · Build scalable methods for workload planning, staffing, skills development, project assignment, design review, technical approval, document control, supplier engagement, manufacturing readiness, and production release. · Identify recurring delays, rework, incomplete engineering outputs, unclear ownership, design-maturity gaps, supplier bottlenecks, and other constraints that limit throughput; implement practical corrective actions. · Establish and monitor engineering operating metrics covering workload and capacity, technical-review completion, design maturity, drawing and Technical Data Package completeness, change activity, manufacturing readiness, first-pass inspection performance, rework, supplier performance, schedule adherence, and program throughput. · Guide the technical evolution of CakeBoxx products and integrated Systems Within SystemsTM solutions. · Establish product lifecycle practices that capture and evaluate feedback from design, manufacturing, production, inspection, testing, customers, suppliers, transportation, deployment, and field use. · Ensure successful designs and recurring solution types are improved over time for performance, manufacturability, quality, cost, lead time, reliability, safety, serviceability, configurability, and repeatability. · Identify recurring product, manufacturing, supplier, quality, documentation, or delivery issues and convert lessons learned into formal design improvements, updated standards, improved processes, and controlled engineering changes. · Drive design reuse, modularity, standardization, and platform development where they increase throughput, reduce risk, shorten lead times, improve quality, or strengthen CakeBoxx’s market position. · Oversee engineering-led innovation and patent-development activities; guide engineers in identifying, documenting, evaluating, and advancing potentially protectable inventions in coordination with company leadership and intellectual-property counsel. · Support marketing and business development initiatives in both domestic and international markets Qualifications / Experience · Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related engineering discipline required. - Executive management and leadership experience in a fast-paced engineering-centric technology and manufacturing domain · Minimum of 15 years of progressive engineering experience supporting complex physical products, industrial manufacturing of fabricated structures, engineered platforms, industrial equipment, transportation systems, or integrated engineered systems. · Minimum of 7 years of engineering leadership experience with increasing scope and responsibility., including at least 3–5 years directly leading, developing, mentoring, and holding accountable a multidisciplinary engineering team. · Demonstrated experience overseeing multiple concurrent engineering builds, manufactured products, or complex physical-system programs, with accountability for technical quality, design maturity, manufacturing readiness, cost, schedule, risk, and delivery performance. · Demonstrated experience leading managers, senior engineers, technical leads, and cross-functional personnel while retaining accountability for engineering quality, engineering governance, product performance, and organizational capability. · Strong technical foundation in mechanical, structural, aerospace, manufacturing, systems, or a related core engineering discipline, with broad working knowledge of the disciplines required to develop integrated CakeBoxx solutions. · Demonstrated ability to review, challenge, and guide work across structural, mechanical, manufacturing, quality, systems, thermal, environmental, electrical, transportation, and deployment considerations. · Proven ability to identify incomplete requirements, design weaknesses, hidden technical risks, manufacturability concerns, configuration-control gaps, supplier risks, and opportunities for product improvement. · Experience directing physical-product engineering from requirements definition through concept development, detailed design, CAD and drawing release, manufacturing, supplier coordination, inspection, testing, production release, delivery, and lifecycle improvement. · Expert level working knowledge of CAD modeling and design/ DFM drawings, assembly and fabrication drawings, bills of material, engineering calculations, FEA, CFD, ther

Company Description

Please see our website at \r\n\r\nThis is an 'on-site' job located at our headquarters in McLean, Virginia. This is not a virtual position.\r\n\r\nCakeBoxx Technologies is an engineering and solutions company that develops integrated operational systems, deployable infrastructure, and mission-focused solutions for defense, aerospace, energy, and industrial customers.\r\nFor more than 15 years, organizations including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Viasat, Rolls-Royce, AST SpaceMobile, Archer Aviation, and LeoLabs have trusted CakeBoxx to solve complex challenges involving mission-critical assets and technologies. Through our Systems Within SystemsTM approach, we engineer solutions that support the transport, protection, storage, deployment, and operation of satellites, radar systems, communications equipment, aircraft structures, propulsion systems, autonomous platforms, battery systems, and other high-value technologies.\r\n\r\nAt CakeBoxx, we engineer around the mission, not just the cargo, developing innovative solutions where conventional approaches are not enough. We engineer the solutions around the mission.