Director, Engineering

Kraken Robotics | Underwater. Understood.

NEW CAREER OPPORTUNITY

Build your career with Kraken Robotics. Make a difference to others. If innovation drives you, and you want a career that makes a difference to the world, helping humanity overcome the challenges in our oceans - safely, efficiently, and sustainably - then come join us at Kraken Robotics.

Kraken Robotics is currently recruiting for a Director, Engineering to join our Mount Pearl, Newfoundland Office.

Full-Time - Permanent | Job Reference: KRSI-2025-06

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Director, Engineering is a core member of the engineering and project management team, to oversee a robust project management and engineering teams.

Key responsibilities include:

• Take ownership of all engineering activities including design, development, production and testing.
• Implement and maintain overall engineering objectives and initiatives. Conduct research and solve performance/operational issues to improve development efficiency.
• Build and lead a high-performing multi-disciplinary engineering team, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence.
• Manage alignment of engineering and project priorities to company objectives.
• Partner closely with Product Management and other business departments to co-develop the product roadmap and ensure tight alignment and partnership between Engineering and Product.
• Develop and implement engineering strategies to drive product innovation and quality improvement.
• Support and enable engineering leads in maintaining or accelerating project timelines and resource management, ensuring projects are completed on time and budget.
• Provide ongoing performance feedback to maximize employee growth and assist employees in developing their career path/development goals.
• Drive daily objectives with engineering teams, identifying and mitigating roadblocks with Engineering Leads.
• Take ownership of the entire engineering organization, driving the evolution of the technology stack and overall platform architecture. Ensuring that we build in a way that ensures scalability and extensibility.
• Lead, mentor, and elevate the skills and capabilities of the team, and ensure retention of resources. Review resource levels in the various teams and ensure that adequate resources (in terms of numbers, skill levels, experience, etc.) are available to meet current and anticipated workloads.
• Work closely with the senior leadership team to ensure that development plans, resources and strategies are coordinated across all departments in a cohesive and collaborative fashion.
• Flawless execution; on a tactical level, optimize and drive efficiency in the engineering organization. Ensure visibility and predictability around engineering processes, systems, etc. Make engineering a well oiled machine that delivers on-time, to customer requirements and is forward-thinking.
• Identify and establish useful metrics and KPIs for the organization, and closely measure Engineering's impact on the business. Responsible for the connection between Engineering goals with business goals.
• Reinforce a "customer first" mentality and culture within the Engineering teams.
• Spearhead, develop and maintain processes and procedures needed to ensure the stable and dependable growth of the function to meet the ever growing demands of the business and its customers.
• Foster a team culture of high performance, transparency, and accountability; drive the team with positive energy and don't be afraid to push people out of their comfort zone.
• Act as the Engineering organization's "mission driven leader"; bring high energy, enthusiasm, and a positive, can-do attitude to the team. Support the values of building an open environment for our technology, and of ownership, learning, mission driven impact, and creating a great place to work.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in engineering required; Master's degree in Engineering or Business Administration would be an asset.
• Work experience as a Director of Engineering or in a similar senior-level position at an engineering department.
• Excellent project management skills; Project Management designation would be an asset.

PREFERRED SKILLS

• Excellent communication skills in English, both verbally and in writing.
• Ability to identify risks and propose alternative strategies to mitigate risks.
• Self-motivated with ability to multi-task and oversee multiple tasks simultaneously with conflicting priorities.
• Good time management, adopting a flexible approach to work.
• Ability to work successfully in a dynamic team environment across departments and locations.
• Strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.
• Strong planning, analytical, and organizational skills.
• Strong ethical values and willingness to raise concerns to internal team members.
• Willing to contribute ideas and seek improvements and solutions committed to improving working practices.
• Demonstrate sound judgement and good decision-making.
• Ability to communicate with internal and external stakeholders whilst ensuring the company is always represented in a professional manner.