Director Of Engineering Jobs in Decatur, AL (NOW HIRING)

Advanced Navigation is the world’s most determined innovator in AI robotics and navigation technologies across land, air, sea and space applications. Founded on a culture of research and discovery, Advanced Navigation's mission is to be the catalyst of the autonomy revolution. Fields of expertise include artificial intelligence, underwater sonar, GNSS, radio frequency systems, inertial sensors, robotics, quantum sensors and photonics.

Today, Advanced Navigation is a supplier to some of the world's largest companies, including Airbus, Boeing, Google, Tesla, NASA, Apple, and General Motors. Discover it for yourself: https://youtu.be/F7uAqs1gtuk

As Advanced Navigation expands its R&D operations into the Americas, we are looking for our first senior engineering leader for the US region.

The mission is to scale the Advanced Navigation portfolio across the Americas while maintaining a unified global product core. You will act as the technical authority for the region, ensuring that unique Americas-market requirements (including high-precision, resilient, and classified PNT needs) are effectively integrated into the products offered in this region.

You will lead the US team for missionization of the current global products as needed, as well as identify capabilities required in support of the Americas customer markets now and in the future. You will connect with the global Product and Technology groups within the bounds of the SSA, ITAR, EAR and other US government restrictions. Your understanding of these regulations is essential.

As Head of Engineering, Americas, you will have the full support of Advanced Navigation’s ELT and global Product and Technology organization. You will lead with a founder's mindset: full ownership of outcomes, effective work with a lean multidisciplinary team.

You will have the opportunity to build the local, cross-disciplinary team from scratch, making the early hiring decisions that define the team's character across Systems, Hardware, Electronics, and Software Engineering.

While remaining autonomous, you will effectively connect with the global Product & Technology organization to leverage the product core and coordinate the developments. You will establish engineering practices that bring Advanced Navigation's technology to the US market.

You must be a U.S. citizen authorized to hold or holding a current security clearance and able to secure a TS/SCI/SAP or other if required.

• Unified Product Advocacy: Represent the Americas' technical interests within the Global Product Engineering Leadership Team. Your mandate is to ensure the global roadmap is "Americas-ready" by influencing core development to include regional requirements by design.
• Requirement Distillation: Act as the primary engineering filter for AdNav Americas opportunities. In coordination with the Navigation Solution Architect, you will analyze complex, often sensitive client needs and translate them into robust, general-purpose capabilities that enhance the value proposition.
• Strategic Modularity: For requirements governed by SSA or specific security air gaps, lead the design of a modular "secure layer." This approach ensures we meet the most stringent classified obligations while preserving the integrity and update-velocity of the core global platform.
• Operational Efficiency: Optimize the engineering footprint by championing "Common Core" development. You will drive a culture that prioritizes sustainable, platform-wide solutions over bespoke, localized engineering efforts, thereby maximizing the return on R&D investment.
• PNT Subject Matter Leadership: Provide executive-level technical guidance on the evolving Americas PNT landscape, ensuring our hardware and software evolution anticipates shifts in resilient navigation, sensor fusion, and regulatory standards.

• Team Build-Out: Establish Advanced Navigation Americas’ engineering presence from the first hire. Define team structure, hiring requirements, and a multidisciplinary culture that balances Systems, Hardware, and Electronics with a core Software Engineering focus.
• Portfolio Ownership: Hold end-to-end responsibility for the Americas engineering portfolio, including roadmap development, delivery execution, and budget management across all R&D disciplines.
• AI-Augmented Engineering: Champion AI-native development practices across the engineering team to ensure the adoption of LLM-assisted coding and automated engineering workflows drive tangible productivity.
• Product Lifecycle Ownership: Own the full Development Lifecycle for US-focused product add-ons from design through delivery, release management, and post-launch improvement, ensuring seamless integration between hardware and software components.
• Strategic Alignment: Set AdNav Americas R&D team metrics and keep the team's work tightly coupled to Advanced Navigation's global mission and the global Product team where SSA & ITAR / EAR will allow. Translate long-term company goals into a concrete, executable multidisciplinary engineering roadmap.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration: Connect Engineering, Product Management, Business Development, and Customer Support. Software should be built with commercial intent, sold with technical credibility, and supported with rigour.
• Ecosystem Collaboration: Work closely with Advanced Navigation's Sydney-based product teams across Navigation Solutions, Software Platforms, Robotics, Inertial, and Acoustics.
• Talent Strategy: Build and sustain a high-talent-density team. Own recruiting, onboarding, mentoring, and professional development for the US engineering team, so the division can attract and keep people capable of world-class work.

• Metric Delivery: Successful and timely delivery of Americas quarterly and annual Objectives and Key Results, aligned to Advanced Navigation Americas’ mission.
• Team Build: Achievement of agreed headcount and talent-density milestones for the US engineering team, with strong engagement and retention metrics.
• AI Productivity: Measurable, sustained integration of AI tooling into the team's development workflows, tracked through delivery velocity, defect rates, and prototyping cycle times.

• Degree in Software, Electrical, or Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Geodesy, Mechatronics, or a related technical discipline. An MSc or advanced degree is highly regarded.
• 10+ years of Engineering Leadership: A proven track record leading multidisciplinary engineering teams (Systems, Hardware, and Software) to deliver complex, field-deployed systems in demanding real-world environments.
• 5+ years in Product-Centric Organizations: Deep, hands-on experience with product discovery, design thinking, iterative delivery, and product ownership across the full lifecycle for the defense industry.
• AI & Automation Proficiency: Demonstrated, practical use of AI-augmented development tooling: LLM-based coding assistants, AI-driven prototyping platforms, and agentic development workflows.
• Domain Depth: Experience in navigation, satellite positioning (GNSS, PPP, PNT), robotics, autonomous systems, or related precision-technology domains is strongly preferred. Familiarity with the US defense, maritime, or energy-sector regulatory markets is advantageous.
• Founder / Greenfield Experience: Demonstrated ability to build teams, practices, and products from the ground up, in a new geography or business unit, with limited initial resources.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience leading cross-functional and cross-cultural product teams. Comfort operating across time zones and within a globally coordinated organization is essential.
• Inspired Leadership: The ability to motivate technically elite team members through vision, clarity of context, and a human-centered leadership philosophy.
• Strategic Planning: Expert ability to map long-term corporate objectives to concrete technical roadmaps, balancing engineering excellence with commercial requirements.
• Conflict Resolution: Skilled at navigating cross-functional friction between engineering rigour and commercial urgency, US and global priorities and precision-technology standards.
• Advanced Communication: Able to articulate complex engineering architectures and multidisciplinary trade-offs clearly to both technical specialists and non-technical executive stakeholders.