Director of Product Design Engineering in Scottsdale, Arizona at Juggernaut Defense LLC

Location: In Person 5 Days a Week at our North Scottsdale (DC Ranch) Office

FLSA Status: Exempt

Employment Status: Full Time

Reports To: Head of Product

General Description of the Role:

The Director of Product Design Engineering provides technical and organizational leadership for the company’s product development efforts, overseeing the end-to-end technical solution from concept through production and field deployment. Positioned as a senior technical leader, the role establishes product architecture, engineering strategy, development standards, and the organizational capabilities needed to solve complex technical challenges. The Director has a direct impact on company performance by accelerating product development, improving quality and reliability, enabling innovation, reducing technical and manufacturing risk, and building teams capable of delivering differentiated products at scale.

Company Overview:

Juggernaut Defense LLC designs and manufactures the Juggernaut.Case line of products. These products Protect, Mount, and Connect mobile technology so they can operate in the harshest environments. We develop our products in close collaboration with key user groups including Special Forces, Tactical First Responders, and extreme outdoor enthusiasts. Our products have been deployed to over 100,000 US and coalition force operators around the globe.

We’ve built a team who is ambitious, thrives in a teamwork-oriented environment, and put pride into delivering exceptional customer experiences through innovation. We look for alignment to our 4 core values:

• Pragmatism: Efficient and direct approach to an end result
• Collaboration: Humble team players
• Ingenuity: Apply core expertise to solutions
• Integrity: Character, honor, and trust

What We’re Offering:

• Competitive salary +10 paid holidays + 2 weeks of vacation per year + paid sick time
• 401K with match to 4%
• Excellent medical coverage including Health, Dental, Vision 100% paid for employee and available for family members
• 25,000 Life Insurance, AD&D, and Long-Term Disability Insurance 100% paid for employees
• An exciting work environment with a great team that’s making an impact

What You’ll Do in this Role:

Team Leadership & Collaboration:

• Build and lead an assigned, high-performing team of product design engineers in the areas of development, compliance, risk management, process documentation, cross functional integration, performance, and communication.
• Create and monitor objectives, goals, strategies and measures for the product design engineering team.
• Inspire engineers to generate solutions that optimize performance, cost, and manufacturability.
• Respond to shifts in design requirements, supply chain constraints, and regulatory updates.
• Promote integrity in materials selection, product claims, and reporting of limitations or failures.
• Communicate how team outputs align with product goals, innovation objectives, and company strategy.
• Efficiently allocate resources to parts, projects, or process improvements that yield maximal impact.
• Mediate design disagreements with data-driven reasoning, maintaining team cohesion.
• Encourage Experimentation: Support prototyping and testing of new design concepts.
• Lead development and adoption of process performance monitors as needed.
• Support and ensure the processes, organizational capability and culture combine to consistently meet agreed commitments to customers.
• Support collaboration across Product Design, Industrial Design, Electrical, Manufacturing, Quality, Operations, and Product Management
• Drive alignment on requirements, priorities, risks, tradeoffs, and technical decisions
• Serve as the technical authority for high-impact product decisions
• Establish accountability for technical decisions and program deliverables
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, collaboration, empathy, and continuous improvement

Product Strategy:

• Define technical direction for major product areas and complex initiatives
• Establish product and mechanical system architecture
• Oversee end-to-end technical development from concept through production and field deployment
• Balance performance, cost, reliability, manufacturability, schedule, and customer needs
• Drive innovation and new technology development
• Improve development speed, product quality, manufacturability, reliability, and engineering efficiency
• Establish engineering standards, principles, and best practices

Engineering Execution:

• Define validation, reliability, durability, and qualification strategies
• Establish performance, safety, compliance, and reliability requirements
• Lead complex product, manufacturing, and field failure resolution
• Direct root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions
• Use test, manufacturing, and field data to drive product improvement
• Ensure DFM/DFMA, tooling, materials, tolerances, and manufacturing considerations are integrated into development

Qualifications:

• 7-10 years related work experience within end-to-end product development, familiar with hardware/software integration including embedded systems, electronics, firmware, and application software.
• Recognized technical expertise in mechanical product design, system architecture, complex components/assemblies, and end-to-end product development.
• Deep design and engineering expertise in injection-molded plastics, CNC machining, materials, tolerances, GD&T, DFM/DFMA, tooling, and fixtures.
• Strong validation and reliability expertise, including qualification, durability testing, root-cause analysis, risk management, and corrective/preventive action.
• Track record of innovation and technical advancement, with experience driving new technologies, engineering methodologies, or product capabilities.
• Exceptional strategic and communication skills, including technical decision-making, executive communication, facilitation, influence, and the ability to establish clear technical direction.
• Must be able to build collaborative relationships with internal customers and across the organization.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or related discipline required; advanced degree preferred. Advanced proficiency in 3D parametric CAD required, with Creo experience preferred.
• U.S. citizenship or permanent residency required.

What You Need to be Successful in this Role:

• Attitude is everything: This role requires someone proactive, positive, and collaborative.
• Details are an obsession: This role requires someone who enjoys managing little details without losing the big picture.
• You Do What You Say You’re Going To Do: This role requires someone who is dependable to deliver quality work on time, collaborating with others as needed.
• Small Business is exciting: The ideal candidate enjoys the little quirks of smaller businesses and respects the role they play in the community.
• Communication & Leadership: Clear, concise communication and stakeholder management skills; effective at leading a discipline specific team in a cross-group development environment.
• Open-Minded: Your approach to listening and problem-solving is inclusive and open-minded.
• Action-Oriented: You are self-motivated; self-starter who can manage and turn into action; manager feedback and coaching into tangible results.
• Project & Program Management: Strong organizational, scheduling, risk management, budget oversight, and reporting capabilities.
• Technical Acumen: Understanding of both hardware and software development processes, able to facilitate design and technical discussions.

This position description contains the major responsibilities to perform this job. These responsibilities may change at any time to meet the needs of our business.

We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected under federal, state or local law.