Director, Applications Engineering

CesiumAstro•Austin, TX

About The Position

CesiumAstro is seeking a Director, Applications Engineering to lead the customer-facing technical organization responsible for helping customers understand, integrate, operate, and deploy the company’s communication products and solutions. The Director leads Applications Engineers who serve as product technical experts and as an interface between customers, Product, Engineering, Business Development, and program execution. The role owns the Voice of the Customer within the product organization, translating customer needs, integration challenges, operational experience, and product feedback into actionable product requirements, roadmap priorities, documentation, tools, and improvements. The Applications Engineering organization supports customers throughout the product lifecycle, from early product evaluation and pursuits through integration, test, deployment, and on-orbit or operational support, with the goal of making complex communication products easier to adopt, integrate, and operate successfully.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field with 11–15 years of related experience; or a master’s degree in a related field with 9–12 years of related experience; or a PhD in a related field with 7–10 years of related experience. Related experience may be in applications engineering, systems engineering, product engineering, customer integration, technical support, or a related engineering discipline.
At least 5 years of leadership or management experience leading applications engineering, systems engineering, product engineering, or related technical professionals and managers.
Extensive experience directing customer integration and deployment activities involving complex hardware and software systems.
Expertise resolving significant system integration, product performance, and technical challenges through direct customer engagement and cross-functional engineering coordination.
Demonstrated experience translating customer requirements, operational feedback, and field experience into product requirements, technical documentation, application tools, and product improvements.
Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, conditional resident, asylee or refugee (protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Responsibilities

Build, develop, and lead a high-performing customer-facing technical team with deep expertise in the company’s communication products, applications, interfaces, and operation.
Establish Applications Engineering as the primary technical interface for customers integrating and deploying standard and configurable products.
Ensure customers have the technical guidance, documentation, tools, training, and support needed to integrate, test, commission, and operate products successfully.
Capture customer needs, integration challenges, product feedback, and operational experience and translate them into actionable input for Product and Engineering.
Partner with Product leadership to identify recurring customer needs, usability gaps, integration challenges, and new applications that should influence product capabilities and investment priorities.
Ensure the Applications Engineering team maintains detailed knowledge of product hardware, software, interfaces, performance, configuration, and operational behavior through engagement with product development teams and hands-on laboratory experience.
Partner with Communication Systems Architects, Business Development, and Product teams to apply existing and planned products to customer needs, develop product configurations, answer technical questions, and support proposals and customer demonstrations.
Establish the approach for customer support through integration, test, commissioning, and operation, including rapid diagnosis and resolution of customer-reported anomalies.
Own the strategy and quality of customer-facing technical content, including user manuals, application notes, integration guides, reference architectures, examples, training material, and other product-adoption resources.
Identify recurring customer integration patterns and develop reference architectures, tools, procedures, and standard solutions that reduce engineering effort and make products easier to deploy across customers and missions.
Establish mechanisms for escalating product issues, communicating customer priorities, supporting root-cause resolution, and ensuring customer deployment lessons improve future product releases.
Work across Conceptual Design, Product Development & Assurance, Product Management, Engineering, Business Development, and execution teams to maintain continuity from customer need through solution development, product selection, program execution, integration, and operation.
Build a team capable of combining technical depth with customer engagement, systems thinking, troubleshooting, and clear technical communication.