Director of Engineering

MTI is a leading provider of rich customer experiences for many of the country’s top retailers and brands.  MTI interactive merchandising products enhance the shopping experience by matching shoppers with products and encouraging in-store demonstration.  MTI brings consumer products and product knowledge to the consumer’s fingertips, turning curious browsers into confident buyers.

We have led the way in interactive merchandising since 1977.  Continuing to lead this market with new and innovative technology, MTI is a premier supplier to the world’s leading brands including Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Verizon, T-Mobile, Nokia, and Sony. We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the last five years and are now positioned for explosive growth in variety of new retail segments.  MTI has a well earned reputation in the Consumer Electronics Retail segment and is now aggressively exploring other retail segments to support our continued growth.

Summary
The Director of Engineering leads all engineering teams and product development activities of MTI while keeping innovation, execution and time to revenue as top priorities. This position supports and aggressively executes the company’s business plan and takes a leadership role in strategic business development, with a focus on growing the organization through the creation of new products. Essential duties and responsibilities include:

• Focus the department on delivering superior products and services to current customers, while developing and executing the growth and diversification of the company’s evolving business model.
• Establish goals, policies and procedures for the engineering department.
• Recruit, develop, train and motivate a first-class engineering organization. Must understand Key Performance Measurement (KPM) processes and be goal oriented/team focused.
• Develop and maintain processes to bring the right products to market, on time, within budget, in a high quality fashion.
• Generate, prepare and present reviews of departmental programs and budgets.  Maintain surveillance over individual projects to ensure progress according to plans with respect to budgetary guidelines and work objectives.
• Collaborate with senior management, product marketing, sales and service in defining the overall system requirements and product-development roadmap.
• Execute MTI’s product roadmap and ensure the integrity of the documentation necessary to support MTI’s product development process.
• Responsible for planning and directing the day-to-day engineering activities of the company to ensure that the agreed upon goals and objectives are successfully achieved, including schedules and costs.
• Implements concurrent engineering principles throughout a product design cycle utilizing design for manufacturability and MRP System experience in cooperation with Marketing/Sales, Purchasing and Operations.
• Manages company’s engineering staff of 10 – 15 employees.
• Responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of staff.

Core Competencies

• An experienced engineering/product development manager with the ability to set and communicate clear goals and expectations, manage and improve performance, recruit, mentor and develop staff, and take decisive action when poor performance requires.
• Experience in planning and implementing major multi-disciplinary projects through a number of revisions and organizing processes such as development, integration, source control, maintenance and new feature development, performance benchmarking, deployment and support with a sense of urgency.
• Ability to develop a strong understanding of customer needs and establish operational standards to exceed customer satisfaction.
• Superior organizational, planning and communication skills, written/verbal presentation, and the ability to present complex technical information, in a clear and concise manner to a variety of audiences, in large and small groups
• Proven ability to lead by example by being capable of, and willing to get involved at the detailed technical level.
• Proven ability to perform in a consultative manner with strong communication skills, both upward and downward.
• Successful history of working in both small and large engineering organizations with demonstrated traction in building groups from scratch in a startup environment, as well as maintaining larger organizations.
• Astute about achieving success in a highly creative, entrepreneurial, growth business. Able to quickly assess the company's organizational structure, operating philosophy, culture, and lines of responsibility, authority, and communication.
• Results-oriented self-starter who is looking to make an impact on business and is stimulated by the rapidly growing company in a constantly changing environment setting.

Primary Qualifications

• Requires a BS degree in Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent and a minimum of 12 years applicable engineering experience with a minimum of 8 years experience managing technical staff.
• A combination of engineering and product development experience is highly desirable.
• Imbedded software design and software project management work experience required.
• Proven record of managing contracted out-sourced engineering development in adherence to schedule/budget constraints is required. 
• Previous participation in an ISO-9000 certification process is desirable. 
• Advanced degree in related technology field highly desirable.
• Previous experience in technology preferred, specifically where the marketing/manufacture of products that have changed an industry or will equip companies to conduct business in a new and innovative way. 
• Experience in retail merchandising and consumer electronics retail a definite plus.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong day-to-day operations skills, with a demonstrated track record in executing a defined development plan in a fast-paced setting.
• A strategic vision to properly build an engineering organization for the long-term while managing to departmental budgets.
• A proven track record of successfully launching new products into new markets.
• Experience in a process intensive business and the ability to manage and efficiently execute a complex product development cycle.
• A hands-on leader who creates loyalty, trust and following.  One who can energize people and teams, and cause cross functional cooperation to occur.
• Demonstrated ability to recruit and retain strong talent. 
• Strong interpersonal skills.  The ability to work well with owners, the management team and the general employee population.
  

This position reports to the VP of Products & Systems and is located at MTI headquarters in Hillsboro, Oregon near the Max tracks.  For more information about MTI, please visit our web site at www.mti-interactive.com. For consideration, please send your cover letter, resume and salary requirements. Persons not including a cover letter and salary requirements may not be considered for the position.  MTI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Drug Free work environment.

 

Email: jobs@mti-interactive.com
Fax: 503.648.7500
MTI | 1050 NW 229th Avenue | Hillsboro, Oregon 97124