Senior Director of Engineering - Analyzer Product Group

Job Description: Senior Director of Engineering – Analyzer Group

Location: Santa Clara, CA (Onsite)
Reports to: SVP, Engineering
Org: Engineering / Analyzer Development

The Opportunity

Picarro is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to lead the Analyzer Group, responsible for engineering delivery across current analyzer products and next-generation analyzer platforms. This role owns end-to-end execution across hardware, firmware, software, systems integration, reliability, and manufacturability, and partners closely with R&D and platform leaders to bring differentiated CRDS-based products to market.

The ideal candidate is a high-ownership engineering leader with deep technical credibility and exceptional operational rigor—someone who builds predictable delivery, drives cross-functional alignment, and sets a culture of professionalism, accountability, and execution excellence.

Scope of Responsibility

• Lead engineering for the Analyzer portfolio including next-gen platform and products built on that platform.
• Own delivery of key analyzer programs across development, sustaining, and quality.
• Drive cross-team execution for customer escalations, including 8D analyses and Corrective Action Requests (CARs) tied to field issues.
• Partner with R&D leaders on critical technology initiatives, including optical feedback CRDS development, ensuring engineering execution is aligned with research direction and productization requirements.

Key Responsibilities

1) End-to-End Program Execution & Predictable Delivery

• Establish and maintain comprehensive, integrated project plans that cover hardware, firmware, and software with clear milestones, dependencies, resourcing, and risk burndown.
• Drive weekly operating cadence: status, risks, decision logs, and mitigation plans; ensure stakeholders have high visibility into progress and blockers.
• Maintain a high say–do standard: commitments are credible, tracked, and delivered; missed commitments trigger root-cause analysis and plan correction.

2) Technical Leadership & Decision Quality

• Provide strong technical leadership across analyzer architecture and design tradeoffs; drive decisions that are necessary, validated, and value-based, avoiding churn and unnecessary redesign.
• Implement a decision-making framework that ensures changes are justified by customer value, reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, or schedule risk reduction.
• Ensure design changes (e.g., subsystem replacements) have clear milestone definitions, qualification plans, and outputs (ECO, test reports, validation results).

3) Customer Issue Management: 8D / CAR Ownership

• Own engineering response for customer escalations requiring 8D and CAR closure, driving cross-functional coordination across engineering, operations, quality, and suppliers.
• Ensure timely root cause identification, containment, corrective actions, verification, and customer-ready reporting—particularly for strategic accounts (e.g., Brooks-class programs).

4) People Leadership, Culture & Professionalism

• Build and lead a high-performing organization: hire, develop, coach, and retain strong managers and technical leaders.
• Set clear expectations for professional conduct: respectful collaboration, constructive technical debate, reliable meeting participation, and strong communication norms.
• Address performance and behavior issues promptly and directly; create a culture of ownership, quality, and teamwork.

5) Resource, Budget, and External Partner Management

• Manage internal/external resources (including consultants) to maximize impact; ensure utilization aligns to the plan and outcomes.
• Track spend, forecast accurately, and manage within budget constraints; report variances early with corrective actions.

6) Engineering Excellence: Quality, Reliability, DFM/DFS

• Drive engineering best practices across analyzer development, including DFM (manufacturability), DFS (serviceability), reliability, and scalability.
• Establish a culture where verification/validation occurs at each step and quality is engineered in—not inspected in.

Required Skills & Behaviors (Non‑Negotiable)

This role requires observable, consistent behaviors:

1. Ownership & Accountability

• Takes responsibility for outcomes; does not deflect ownership across teams or functions.

1. Operational Rigor / Planning Excellence

• Produces and maintains integrated HW/FW/SW plans with clear deliverables and resource needs; builds stakeholder confidence through transparency.

1. Reliability & Execution Discipline

• High say–do ratio; anticipates risks early and drives mitigation without waiting for escalation.

1. Strong Judgment / Change Control

• Drives necessary changes with clear justification and validation; avoids unplanned scope churn.

1. Cross-Team Leadership

• Coordinates effectively across engineering, quality, ops, and suppliers—especially during 8D/CAR responses.

1. Professional, Respectful Leadership

• Demonstrates consistent professionalism; fosters constructive technical debate without combative or disrespectful behavior; models strong meeting discipline.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in engineering leadership roles, including managing managers and multi-disciplinary teams (hardware/firmware/software/systems).
• Demonstrated success delivering complex products in a hybrid hardware + software environment (analytical instruments, industrial systems, or equivalent).
• Proven ability to build and execute platform roadmaps and accelerate delivery through modular architecture and strong engineering processes.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate technical tradeoffs to executives and cross-functional partners.

Preferred

• Experience with reliability engineering, field escalation processes, and formal corrective action systems (8D/CAR).
• Experience in regulated or safety-critical product environments; exposure to CRDS or optical instrumentation is a plus.

What Success Looks Like (First 6–12 Months)

• A working operating system is in place: weekly execution reviews, decision logs, risk burndown, and credible integrated project plans for major programs (e.g., Loki).
• Customer escalations have a clear owner and cadence; 8D/CAR cycles close predictably with verified corrective actions and clear customer communication.
• Engineering leaders and teams report higher clarity, faster decision-making, and stronger accountability—and program delivery becomes measurably more predictable.

The base salary range for this full-time position is $250K to $260K. Our total compensation packages include base salary, bonus eligibility, and equity. Your base salary range and title will be determined based on the location, experience, qualification, skills, knowledge, level, and pay of employees in similar positions.

We offer a comprehensive benefit package including:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and Health Savings Account (HSA) plans
• Life, Short-Term Disability, and Long-Term Disability Insurance
• Paid Time Off and Paid Holidays
• Employee Referral Program
• 401K
• Social events (summer picnic, holiday party, team lunches, etc.)
• On-site Health & Wellness programs (fitness challenges, outdoor bootcamp, flu-shots, etc.)

About Picarro:

We are the world's leader in timely, trusted, and actionable data using enhanced optical spectroscopy. Our solutions are used in a wide variety of applications, including natural gas leak detection, ethylene oxide emissions monitoring, semiconductor fabrication, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, atmospheric science, air quality, greenhouse gas measurements, food safety, hydrology, ecology, and more. Our software and hardware are designed and manufactured in Santa Clara, California and are used in over 90 countries worldwide based on over 65 patents related to cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) technology and are unparalleled in their precision, ease of use, and reliability.

At Picarro, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status, gender identity, social orientation, or disability. Posted positions are not open to third-party recruiters/agencies, and unsolicited resume submissions will be considered free referrals. 

At Picarro, we strive to ensure that all individuals, regardless of their abilities, have equal opportunities. If you are an individual with a disability and require reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process or are limited in the ability or unable to access or use this online application process and need an alternative method for applying, please contact Picarro, Inc. at [email protected] for assistance.