Director, Research & Development

Talon Hiring Solutions has a client in the greater Birmingham, AL area that is looking for a Director of R&D to lead the integration of Mechanical, Electrical, and Firmware development into innovative, production-ready products. This role will establish and manage the engineering processes that keep teams aligned from initial concept through EVT, DVT, PVT, and mass production. The Director of R&D will partner closely with Engineering, Validation, Program Management, and manufacturing partners to ensure products are developed efficiently, thoroughly documented, and ready for high-volume production.

*This role offers a hybrid work schedule and relocation to Birmingham, AL*

What You'll Do:

Engineering & Product Development

• Lead and maintain the engineering development process from concept and prototyping through EVT, DVT, PVT, and production ramp.
• Establish engineering standards, design reviews, checkpoints, and documentation requirements across Mechanical, Electrical, and Firmware teams.
• Ensure design intent, engineering changes, and product requirements remain fully documented and traceable throughout development.
• Identify process gaps and cross-functional issues early to prevent missed milestones and production challenges.
• Partner with Program Management to establish milestones, deliverables, resources, and priorities across multiple concurrent programs.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Coordinate Mechanical, Electrical, and Firmware teams to ensure development activities remain aligned.
• Facilitate technical tradeoff discussions around performance, cost, manufacturability, and product requirements.
• Establish shared engineering standards and design guidelines across disciplines.
• Drive clear decision-making, accountability, and communication without serving as the sole technical authority for each discipline.

Validation & Quality

• Partner with the Director of Validation to ensure test plans provide meaningful coverage of product functionality, performance, reliability, and stability.
• Ensure validation findings are documented, communicated, and incorporated into the development process.
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective action processes when issues arise during validation or production.
• Incorporate risk assessments, FMEA, tolerance analysis, and other quality checkpoints into the development process.

Manufacturing & JDM/ODM Partnerships

• Own the engineering process for transferring design intent, tooling strategy, and production requirements to JDM/ODM manufacturing partners.
• Ensure offshore manufacturing partners have the appropriate documentation, specifications, and processes to support high-volume production.
• Establish verification and audit processes for electrical, firmware, and hardware readiness.
• Support factory builds, tool trials, line audits, and production ramp-up activities.
• Ensure engineering documentation and process requirements remain aligned throughout the manufacturing lifecycle.

Program & Risk Management

• Track program milestones, risks, resources, and deliverables across multiple product development programs.
• Establish escalation paths and proactively address issues that could impact schedule, cost, quality, or production readiness.
• Report overall program health, risks, and process gaps to leadership.
• Help create a scalable R&D process that supports continued growth and new product development.

What You'll Bring:

• 10+ years of experience in hardware product development, preferably with complex connected electronics or consumer/industrial products.
• Strong experience building or managing engineering processes across Mechanical, Electrical, and Firmware disciplines.
• Proven experience taking products from prototype through EVT/DVT/PVT and high-volume production.
• Strong understanding of Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and production scaling.
• Experience working with JDM/ODM manufacturing partners, including engineering handoff, verification, factory builds, and production readiness.
• Technical fluency across mechanical design, electrical/PCBA development, and embedded firmware to understand cross-functional dependencies and tradeoffs.
• Experience with PLM systems, engineering change processes, and product documentation.
• Strong understanding of engineering documentation, drawing standards, and design controls.
• Experience developing outdoor consumer or industrial electronic products is highly preferred.
• Strong organizational, communication, problem-solving, and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Willingness to travel internationally, including to manufacturing sites in Asia, for tooling trials, audits, and production ramp-up.
• Formal project management experience or certification.
• Experience supporting international manufacturing builds.
• Knowledge of environmental and reliability testing standards for outdoor products.
• Familiarity with FMEA, GD&T, and tolerance stack analysis.