Director of Engineering, RF Applications - Rolling Meadows, IL

Description

Company Background

Epiq Solutions develops cutting-edge software-defined radio (SDR) products and processing solutions to enable spectrum dominance for maritime, land, air, and space domains. With 17 years serving government and commercial enterprise customers and 30K+ devices fielded to more than 500 customers, Epiq Solutions is a trusted partner with a proven heritage of delivering open architecture products in radically small form factors where time-to-market, cost, and performance are critical for mission success.

For more information, visit https://epiqsolutions.com

Introduction

We are seeking an experienced and results-driven Director of Engineering to lead our RF Applications team, focused on building government-aligned RF software applications and complete RF solutions. The ideal candidate is an accomplished engineering leader with a proven ability to build, develop, and lead high-performing organizations through growth, change, and increasing complexity. Success in this role requires exceptional people leadership, organizational leadership, stakeholder management, and a drive for organization and business growth, combined with sufficient technical depth to guide engineering strategy and decision-making. Our team culture strikes a balance of high performance and high integrity, while remaining humble and pragmatic, and we seek an engineering leader who thrives in this environment. The candidate must be data-driven, well-organized, and motivated to help their team thrive, execute, and grow.

Job Responsibilities

Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness

• •Establish and communicate a clear vision, priorities, and operating principles for the RF Applications engineering organization.
• •Build and develop a high-performing leadership team through coaching, feedback, accountability, and succession planning.
• •Foster a culture of trust, collaboration, ownership, continuous improvement, and professional development.
• •Lead organizational change initiatives while maintaining team engagement, alignment, and productivity.
• •Establish clear performance expectations and proactively address performance, accountability, and development opportunities.
• •Drive employee engagement, retention, and leadership development across the RF Applications engineering organization.
• •Serve as a trusted partner to executive leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• •Monitor and improve organizational health through employee engagement, talent development, retention, and effective leadership practices.
• •Develop an onboarding and mentorship program to enable new employees to rapidly integrate and contribute to Epiq’s success.

Engineering Strategy, Execution & Delivery

• •Lead and develop a team of engineering managers and engineers across multiple disciplines, ensuring organizational effectiveness, leadership accountability, talent development, and successful execution of engineering objectives.
• •Work closely with our product management team to ensure there is alignment between our product roadmap priorities and the engineering execution within our project teams.
• •Experience engaging with customers to understand requirements, communicate technical solutions, and support business growth.
• •Partner with Product Management, Project Management , Operations, Sales, and Executive Leadership to align priorities, communicate tradeoffs, and ensure successful execution of business objectives.
• •Provide technical leadership and strategic guidance to the RF Applications engineering team, contributing to architecture, technology strategy, customer engagements, and proposal efforts as appropriate.
• •Establish relationships with engineering leaders across all Epiq locations and drive successful execution of cross site projects.
• •Collaborate with the Director of Engineering – SDR to establish, align, and implement engineering standards, policies, and procedures that drive quality, consistency and compliance across the engineering organization.
• •Coach and develop engineering managers and technical leaders through regular feedback, mentoring, performance management, and career development planning.
• •Participate in our engineering recruiting and hiring efforts, working closely with HR and engineering functional managers.
• •Promote a culture of continuous improvement and learning within the engineering team.

Requirements

Job Requirements

Leadership Requirements

• •Demonstrated success leading managers, developing technical leaders, and building leadership capability within a growing engineering organization.
• •Experience leading organizational change, including restructuring teams, implementing new processes, and driving adoption of new ways of working.
• •Demonstrated experience establishing operating rhythms, performance metrics, and accountability mechanisms that drive organizational effectiveness.
• •Strong executive presence with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• •Experience navigating complex organizational dynamics and aligning cross-functional teams around shared objectives.
• •Demonstrated ability to provide difficult feedback, address performance concerns, and drive meaningful behavioral change.
• •Track record of developing leadership bench strength, succession plans, and internal talent pipelines.
• •Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning, including actively seeking feedback, adapting behavior, and applying lessons learned to improve leadership effectiveness.

Engineering Strategy & Execution Requirements

• •Minimum of 15 years of engineering experience, including at least 5 years leading engineering teams, managers, or technical organizations.
• •Experience leading and scaling engineering organizations through growth, organizational change, and increasing complexity.
• •Demonstrated ability to develop and execute engineering strategies, organizational priorities, and operating models that drive measurable business results.
• •Excellent project and organizational management skills, with experience delivering complex initiatives on time and within budget.
• •Experience with budget management, resource planning, and organizational prioritization.
• •Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to communicate technical and business tradeoffs to diverse audiences.
• •Strong technical acumen with the ability to effectively guide technical discussions, evaluate tradeoffs, and contribute to engineering strategy when needed.
• •Experience with engineering workforce planning, recruiting, hiring, and talent development.
• •Understanding of compliance, security, and industry-specific regulatory requirements.
• •Ability to foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, continuous improvement, and customer-focused product development.
• •Demonstrated ownership, accountability, and commitment to team and organizational outcomes.
• •Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field; Master's degree or MBA preferred.

Desired Skills (one or more)

• •Experience in the domain of RF Application and associated software, FPGA, and DSP development
• •Familiarity with commercial and government waveforms and communication standards and wireless signals.
• •Experience with RF system integration and solution development.
• •Experience with software development, lifecycle, and agile methodologies

Success in This Role

Success in this role will be measured by the Director's ability to:

• •Build and develop a high-performing Engineering organization.
• •Develop a strong leadership bench and succession pipeline for critical engineering roles.
• •Establish clear accountability and predictable execution across engineering teams.
• •Deliver engineering commitments aligned with company and product objectives.
• •Develop engineering managers and future leaders through coaching and succession planning.
• •Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, continuous improvement, and ow