Lead System Design Engineer

Overview

The Lead System Design Engineer (SDE) will be the technical expert for customer facing projects post purchase order. They will be the gating resource for handing a project with finalized scope off to production system design engineers. They will iterate with the customer and internal cross functional teams on the completion of the CX drawing with sign off being a requirement for it getting into the production queue. The Lead Systems Design Engineer will have direct reports that they will be responsible for guiding through projects from a technical perspective. They will check in regularly to confirm the project is on schedule, be an advocate for resolving project roadblocks, and escalate to the appropriate stakeholders if there are timeline challenges. The Lead SDE will also be responsible for the peer review of the systems detailed by their direct reports and will ultimately be responsible for the output of the System Design Engineers that they lead.

When not supporting customer-facing projects, the Lead SDE will be responsible for supporting continuous improvement initiatives with the intent of gaining efficiency and preventing repetitive issues within the production detailing process. The Lead SDE will work with the engineering manager to establish project scope and schedule with target milestones and implementation dates.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of direct reports across the Associate and Staff SDE levels
  • Conduct 1:1s
  • Write annual reviews
  • Support direct reports’ active projects and be an advocate for resolving any roadblocks
  • Participate in hiring and onboarding
  • Advocate for development and improvements for individuals and department
  • Establish development plans for each direct report, acting on them monthly
  • Setting an example for ideal culture and behavior for more junior team members to follow
  • Responsibility of timely execution of timesheets, expense reporting, and admin activities
• Lead the CX phase of design for assigned production projects, owning requirements gathering and cross-functional alignment
  • Facilitate requirements discovery with the customer and internal stakeholders, ensuring all hardware scope, constraints, and acceptance criteria are fully documented and agreed upon before detailed design begins
  • Obtain formal CX sign-off on the finalized hardware scope and deliver a complete design brief to the production SDE
• Complete peer reviews of system designs produced by production SDEs
  • Evaluate designs for technical accuracy, completeness, adherence to customer requirements, and alignment with HighRes design standards
  • Provide clear, actionable feedback and collaborate with the engineer to resolve issues before design release
• Serve as the production gate, controlling what engineering work is approved for release to the production floor
  • Review and approve all engineering deliverables prior to production cutover, ensuring output meets quality, completeness, and safety standards
  • Maintain ultimate accountability for the quality of engineering work delivered to the production floor; escalate unresolved concerns to the appropriate stakeholders before any work proceeds
• Execute improvements to the system design engineering process and department
  • Identify problems in current process, department organization, or general policies
  • Research and propose solutions to manager and team
  • Implement or oversee implementation of accepted solutions