Director, Infrastructure and Systems R&D

EF Johnson Technologies•Irving, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

EF Johnson Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of JVCKENWOOD Corporation, provides wireless communications products and systems for public safety, commercial, and government customers. The company designs, manufactures, and markets conventional and trunked radio systems, land mobile radio repeaters, and mobile and portable radios, including Project 25 digital radio products. The Director, Infrastructure and Systems R&D leads software development and test engineers responsible for architecture and development of major components of a patented, scalable, distributed all-IP wireless communications network solution for the land mobile radio industry. The role also manages field support to ensure critical customer infrastructure software issues are resolved promptly and to strengthen the organization’s technical expertise. The director is accountable for team objectives, the R&D budget, development processes, and delivering large-scale projects on time and with high quality. Working with Product Management, Marketing, Sales, engineering teams, and other stakeholders, the director helps develop roadmaps, strategic plans, budgets, and product availability forecasts. The position is onsite in the Irving, Texas office and requires up to 30% domestic and international travel.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a closely related discipline.
15+ years of applicable wireless industry software development experience, including a strong history of complex system design and implementation.
Proficiency managing teams programming in Linux-based systems, C/C++, Python, web-based NMS, and Perl scripting.
At least 3 years of experience as a director-level manager.
Strong technical knowledge and vision, with a record of leading teams to deliver new software products on time and within budget.
Demonstrated success mentoring and building high-performance teams, shaping engineering culture, and driving accountability.
Ability to define technology strategies and manage multidisciplinary engineering processes to meet market and schedule demands.
Deep expertise in advanced networking and system design, including hands-on experience driving innovation and adapting to evolving technologies.
Extensive experience with complex software- and hardware-based systems in mission-critical or carrier-grade environments.
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including communication with employees, vendors, and customers.
Ability to manage people and processes while balancing productivity, quality, and business responsiveness.
Demonstrated team-building and motivational skills.
Ability to work autonomously with minimal supervision.
Broad knowledge of product development methodology, especially product lifecycle design.
Senior leadership ability, including representing the system engineering team to EFJohnson and JVCKENWOOD executives.
Ability to prioritize and demonstrate urgency based on required actions.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or Ph.D.
10+ years of senior management experience managing large developer teams.
Experience leading a field support team.
Expertise understanding and debugging complex systems to resolve performance, redundancy, and scalability issues in a mission-critical communications context.
Direct LMRS product development experience.

Responsibilities

Establish and execute development life-cycle processes and procedures, manage complex multi-component release planning, and deliver high-quality systems releases.
Manage an integrated development process involving developers, testers, and technicians, emphasizing quality and time to market.
Manage the field support organization to resolve critical customer infrastructure software issues promptly and improve its technical expertise.
Drive hands-on development tasks while shaping longer-term architecture and supporting rapid innovation.
Promote an ownership culture across the team and management.
Provide technical guidance, direction, and resources to functional leaders and managers.
Establish guidelines and a roadmap for evolving the distributed architecture into a software-defined network, and direct teams in delivering that strategy.
Coordinate with implementation, operations, systems, bids and proposals, and program teams that use the infrastructure solution.
Build collaboration and teamwork within infrastructure development and across operations, field support, and program management.
Provide work direction and coaching to subordinate staff and serve as a senior technical advisor on design, technology, product evaluation, and testing.
Prepare and present management reports and evaluations.
Work collaboratively with other leaders to resolve priorities and issues and hold groups accountable for shared objectives.
Guide the processes and standards for the engineering team's day-to-day development activities.
Establish metrics to measure development efficiency and drive continual improvement.
Attract, retain, and motivate talented developers and encourage intellectual growth.
Manage R&D budgets and prioritize financial and human resources.
Direct the team in setting annual goals aligned with EFJohnson and JVCKENWOOD strategies.
Abide by the established Approval Matrix.