Associate Director - Mechanical Engineering Discipline Lead (Onsite)

Associate Director, Mechanical Engineering Discipline Lead

Embark on a journey where your leadership will help shape the future of aerospace and defense technology. At Collins Aerospace, we're modernizing the Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) capabilities on our customers' most crucial platforms.

As our next Associate Director, Mechanical Engineering Discipline Lead and as a member of the Strategic Defense Solutions (SDS) Hardware organization, you will indirectly lead a team of 8+ Mechanical Engineering leaders and 120+ engineers, whose charter is to design, develop, test, and deploy mission critical weapon systems components for the United States Military Branches. You will work with leaders that are People Focused, have a One Team mentality and are Mission Driven. Our team takes pride in their contributions to the defense and security of the United States. This position will be located in either Richardson, TX / Sterling, VA / Binghamton, NY / Cedar Rapids, IA.

This position reports to the Director or Engineering for Strategic Defense Solutions and will partner with the Mission Systems E&T HW Discipline Lead and all Mechanical leaders within Strategic Defense Solutions Hardware and Mission Systems. In addition, this position will partner with chief engineers, project engineering, business development, and operations.

We are seeking a people-centered, execution-focused leader with a strong mechanical engineering background and a proven record of developing products across program lifecycles, leading development teams and aligning organizations around discipline best practices. This position offers end-to-end leadership responsibility across the development lifecycle, with a unique opportunity to shape the engineering organization, strengthen capability depth, and drive sustained performance in direct support of national defense.

What You Will Do:

• Work with Mission Systems department leaders to coordinate efforts across portfolios within Strategic Defense Solutions, ensuring a unified approach to meeting business needs.
• Participate in Requirements and Architecture Reviews, Independent Reviews and Non-Advocate Reviews to ensure designs and plans are aligned with requirements and manufacturing feasibility.
• Partner with Engineering Leadership to develop talent that meet the needs of our portfolios and meet our customers' most challenging commitments.
• Conduct directorate leadership over the entire life cycle including bids, program management, requirements capture, design and implementation, integration, verification, and certification.
• Connect geographically distributed teams to engage talent across sites, work to identify best practices and execute as a seamless organization.
• Travel to SDS HW sites across the organization to engage with talent and connect with teams.
• Identify, develop, track and deploy KPI's within discipline to foster predictable performance and highlight areas of focus.
• Foster a culture of technical rigor, collaboration, and continuous improvement in support of mission-critical delivery.
• Communicate well with a wide variety of individuals including Engineering, Program Management, internal leadership, and customers.
• Strives to spend 25 - 50% of week engaged in programmatic technical tasks and providing leader oversight to program performance.
• Look out to industry for other developing technologies to adopt into our products – Identifying and incorporating AI into our engineering disciplines to achieve execution efficiency.
• Partner with Mission Engineering & Technology HW Discipline Lead to align initiatives within organization.

What You Will Learn:

• You will have opportunities to communicate with executives to showcase the mechanical capabilities of the SDS hardware organization.
• You will enhance leadership skills through tactical and strategic planning and coordination.
• You will have the potential for career advancement in Engineering leadership roles.

Qualifications You Must Have:

• Experience leading cross-functional technical teams with a passion for challenging and developing people.
• The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.
• Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) and minimum 12 years prior relevant experience or an Advanced Degree in a related field and minimum 10 years of experience.

Qualifications We Prefer:

• Active DoD security clearance.
• Special Access Programs experience.
• Familiar with Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning techniques.
• Previous experience in driving team accountability for meeting project deadlines, budgets, and quality standards.
• Previous experience in problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Previous experience in a fast-paced, dynamic and creative work environment.
• Previous experience in building, mentoring, and growing high-performing teams.
• Previous experience in stakeholder management and ensuring that all teams remain aligned to business objectives, while maintaining a customer-centric approach.

What We Offer:

Some of our competitive benefits package includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Three weeks of vacation for newly hired employees
• Generous 401(k) plan that includes employer matching funds and separate employer retirement contribution, including a Lifetime Income Strategy option
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Student Loan Repayment Program
• Life insurance and disability coverage
• Optional coverages you can buy pet insurance, home and auto insurance, additional life and accident insurance, critical illness insurance, group legal, ID theft protection
• Birth, adoption, parental leave benefits
• Ovia Health, fertility, and family planning
• Adoption Assistance
• Autism Benefit
• Employee Assistance Plan, including up to 10 free counseling sessions
• Healthy You Incentives, wellness rewards program
• Doctor on Demand, virtual doctor visits
• Bright Horizons, child and elder care services
• Teladoc Medical Experts, second opinion program
• And more!

Relocation: This position may be eligible for relocation