Technology Strategy & Operations Director

The Technology organization is the engine that creates DAPS, the 21st century automated design & manufacturing platform accelerating advancements in aerospace & defense and high-volume automotive markets. The Director of Technology Development Operations is the Chief Platform Development Officer’s right hand – an enterprise expert with mastery across multiple technology domains who translates strategy into action, is a systems thinker with executive level communication skills that removes friction, and ensures the team delivers cost reduction, capability expansion, and talent development goals. 

1. Technology Execution & Decision Support

• Peer Alignment: Gather problem statements, priorities, and proofs of concept from external departments for inclusion in technology OKRs. 
• OKR Management: Own the end-to-end Technology Org OKR cycle (collection, updates, monthly/quarterly reviews, retrospectives). 
• Company Tie In: Validate that technology OKRs cascade from and support companywide OKRs; adjust strategy as needed. 
• OKR Evolution: Facilitate regular OKR framework retrospectives; drive continuous improvement of the OKR process. 
• Decision Gate Facilitation: Run weekly tech leadership syncs, maintain a decision register, and surface blockers for rapid resolution. 
• Risk & Issue Management: Track cross functional risks in a live dashboard; coordinate mitigation actions with Extended & Senior Leadership Teams  

2. Technology Connectivity

• Internal Comms: Produce all hands updates, newsletters, tech demos, and other communications to keep the whole company informed of platform advancement, achievements, project status and priorities. 
• External Relationships: Manage relationships with technology thought leaders through conferences, media, and site visits. Collect and present competitive intelligence and opportunities for strategic partnerships. 
• Technology Feedback: Collect and synthesize employee feedback on technology performance, culture, and technical direction; feed insights back to leadership. 

3. Technology Strategy& Portfolio Governance 

• Strategic Feedback Loops: Develop and manage the feedback loops to and from the operations & business development organizations, ensuring program requirements feed into technology strategy and technology capabilities (existing, in development or conceptual) feed back into SIOP and business development processes. 
• Roadmap Management: Develop and maintain a ~5-year technology capability roadmap that links OKRs, technology enablers, and product family targets. Identify and resolve blockers stalling progress. Translate long term roadmap into quarterly org OKRs. 
• COGS & NRE: Lead high level tradeoff analyses to prioritize projects that reduce cost of good sold and non-recurring engineering spend to align with company go-to-market strategy 
• Technology Portfolio Review: Conduct quarterly technology health reviews (ROI, technical debt, and throughput). 
• Architecture & Standards Guardrails: Consolidate, define and enforce technology architecture principles and safety/quality standards. 

4. People, Culture & AI Enablement

• Leadership Development: Capture needs for technical and people leadership capability advancement, partner with People Ops for creation and implementation. 
• AI Knowledge Harvest: Facilitate the capture of engineering expertise for translation into agentic AI tools (knowledge bases, recommendation engines, workflow automation) to accelerate program execution and technology development. 
• Culture & Change Management: Create and execute change management plans for major technology rollouts with accountability for quality of company-wide implementations; monitor adoption and cultural health. Mentor and coach platform team on best practices. 

5. Finance, Resource Management & Reporting

• Budget Ownership: Lead annual technology budget creation and quarterly reforecasting in Datarails; track spend vs. forecast and reprioritize funding as needed. 
• Resource & Capacity Planning: Facilitate headcount management (modeling, allocations & approvals); allocate resources to highest value projects each quarter. Participate in recruiting activities for high priority roles. 

• Ability to lawfully access information and technology that is subject to US export controls 
• 8+ years of operational experience in dynamic, technical start-up environments turning ambiguity into robust and streamlined business processes 
• Demonstrated strategic influence, working closely with C-suite executives on long term planning 
• Proven ability to solve ambiguous, high complexity problems with minimal supervision and to define technical strategy 
• Strong communication skills for translating technical detail into business value for customers and internal stakeholders and vice versa 
• Experience coaching leaders of all levels and contributing to internal knowledge bases or communities of practice. 

• 5+ years in a strategic consulting environment 
• Experience working in agile, cross functional product teams. 
• Knowledgeable of advanced manufacturing systems and processes 
• Exposure to enterprise-wide AI/ML applications 
• Prior work in a regulated industry (aerospace, automotive, etc.) where regulatory compliance and safety are critical.