Associate Director - Chief Engineer

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Role Purpose

The Chief Engineer – Trailer Product Line serves as the single-point technical authority and accountability owner for Carrier’s Trailer product portfolio within Climate Solutions Transportation (CST).This role exists to ensure system integrity, disciplined technical decision-making, and predictable engineering outcomes across safety, quality, cost, schedule, and performance—without compromising long-term platform strategy or architectural integrity. Operating at the system, platform, and portfolio level, the Chief Engineer translates business strategy into scalable, compliant, and competitive engineering solutions through strong technical leadership and governance.

Role Responsibilities

• Serve as the single-point technical accountability owner for the Trailer product line across the full product lifecycle, from pre‑P0 concept through NPI, sustaining, quality, and cost‑reduction initiatives.
• Own system-level architecture, technology selection, and cross-domain technical tradeoffs, ensuring alignment with CST platform strategies, reuse roadmaps, and long-term technology direction.
• Act as the final technical decision authority for Trailer programs, including architecture adherence, technical risk acceptance, and major tradeoffs impacting cost, schedule, or performance.
• Provide functional leadership and technical direction to Engineering Project Leaders (EPLs), establishing clear decision rights, escalation thresholds, and operating cadence.
• Chair or co-chair key technical forums, including architecture reviews, integration readiness reviews, design reviews, and program gate reviews.
• Ensure strong alignment with Systems Engineering on requirements flow-down, interfaces, verification & validation, and compliance readiness.
• Drive closure of systemic quality and reliability issues through structured RCCA and design-for-reliability practices.
• Partner with Finance and Engineering leadership on AOP planning, budget ownership, engineering demand vs. capacity tradeoffs, and portfolio prioritization.
• Serve as the senior technical interface for customers, regulators, and strategic suppliers when escalation, credibility, or engineering judgment is required.
• Develop leadership bench strength by coaching EPLs and cultivating future Chief Engineers.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Electrical, Manufacturing, or Aerospace engineering.
• 10+ years of progressive engineering experience, including senior system-level technical leadership of complex, multi‑disciplinary products.
• 10+ years of experience with system-level architecture ownership and cross-domain integration for complex, multi-disciplinary products
• 10+ years of experience in a technical decision authority, including leading major tradeoffs and risk acceptance impacting cost, schedule, and performance