Chief Engineer and Deputy Chief Technology Officer

About this role

The Chief Engineer and Deputy Chief Technology Officer serves as Albers Aerospace’s senior enterprise engineering authority for technical integrity, engineering readiness, technical risk, and the successful transition of products and systems from concept through development, qualification, production, fielding, and sustainment. The Chief Engineer provides technical leadership across Albers Aerospace programs and capabilities including aerospace structures, mechanical systems, complex hardware, aircraft modifications, mission systems, manufacturing, sensors, munitions, fuzes, digital engineering, modeling and simulation, and integrated hardware-software systems. The role establishes and maintains a lean, risk-based engineering operating model that ensures products and solutions are technically sound, manufacturable, testable, producible, scalable, supportable, and aligned with customer, cost, schedule, quality, safety, and mission objectives. The Chief Engineer bridges applied technology, design intent, systems integration manufacturing, and production execution. On customer-controlled build-to-print programs, the position ensures compliance with the customer’s technical baseline and design authority. For Albers-developed products and integrated solutions, the Chief Engineer establishes and maintains the approved technical baseline and engineering decision authority. As Deputy Chief Technology Officer, the Chief Engineer acts on behalf of the CTO when delegated, supports enterprise technology strate4gy and investment decisions, and helps integrate the work of the Chief Scientist, Technical Director, Chief AI and Software Officer, Vice President of Information Technology, program engineering teams, and business-unit leadership. The role must strengthen engineering discipline and scalability while preserving Albers’ culture of speed, ownership, collaboration, customer focus, and minimal administrative burden. These principles are central to the Albers Business System and company operating model. Essential Job Functions: · Serve as Albers Aerospace’s senior enterprise engineering authority for technical integrity, engineering readiness, design decisions, and technical risk across hardware, aerospace structures, aircraft integration, mission systems, manufacturing, sensors, munitions, fuzing, digital engineering, and integrated hardware-software systems. · Act as Deputy Chief Technology Officer, representing the CTO when delegated and supporting enterprise technology strategy, R&D priorities, engineering investments, workforce planning, and executive decision-making. · Establish clear technical decision rights, responsibilities, and escalation paths across Engineering, Operations, Program Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Business Development, and Information Technology. · Develop and maintain a lean, risk-based engineering operating model covering requirements, architecture, interfaces, design, analysis, verification, qualification, configuration management, production transition, fielding, and sustainment. · Serve as the delegated design authority for Albers-owned products and integrated solutions while ensuring compliance with customer-controlled technical baselines on build-to-print programs. · Provide technical oversight for high-risk, strategically important, or complex programs and ensure technical risks are identified, communicated, assigned, and actively managed. · Ensure customer commitments, program schedules, and cost estimates reflect engineering complexity, supplier lead times, test and certification requirements, manufacturing readiness, and available technical capacity. · Lead Design for Manufacturability, Design for Assembly, producibility, First Article Inspection, qualification planning, and Production Readiness Reviews. · Strengthen handoffs among engineering, manufacturing, programming, machinists, operations, quality, and supply chain, including readiness reviews before new or significantly changed designs enter production. · Ensure manufacturing, supplier, test, operational, and field changes are reviewed by Engineering and incorporated into the approved technical baseline. · Develop enterprise visibility into engineering expertise, equipment, laboratories, software, test assets, certifications, and available capacity across Albers sites, and ensure internal capabilities are considered before outsourcing. · Lead engineering workforce and capacity planning, including critical hiring needs, mentoring, succession planning, technical career paths, internal advancement, onboarding, internships, and cross-site development opportunities. · Partner with the Chief Scientist and Technical Director to transition emerging technologies, trade studies, prototypes, and demonstrations into disciplined engineering development, qualification, production, and fielded capability. · Partner with the Chief AI and Software Engineering leader to integrate software, firmware, AI, modeling, simulation, digital engineering, and hardware-software interfaces into the broader engineering lifecycle. · Partner with the Vice President of Information Technology to define requirements for engineering workstations, CAD and simulation tools, secure environments, technical data, software licenses, cloud services, and laboratory infrastructure. · Support customer engagement, business development, proposals, technical volumes, solution architecture, cost and schedule estimates, and the packaging of Albers engineering capabilities as standalone services. · Support technical due diligence and integration planning for acquisitions, investments, strategic partnerships, suppliers, and licensing opportunities. · Promote engineering excellence, continuous improvement, cross-functional collaboration, and lessons learned while protecting Albers’ culture of speed, ownership, customer focus, and minimal administrative burden. Note: The duties and responsibilities described on this document are not necess