JOB OPPORTUNITY
SR. DIRECTOR, SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE & ENGINEERING
BRIEF COMPANY PROFILE
Our client develops, manufactures and sells devices to hospitals all over the world and it is a leading global player in their field. The company develops products in close collaboration with doctors and nurses in order to most effectively ensure that their solutions are relevant for their customers.
The company is headquartered in Greater Copenhagen, with main innovation centers in Denmark and South East Asia. These are supported by local development departments in Europe, North America and South East Asia.
THE POSITION
Based on a newly launched re-organization of the Global Innovation (R&D) team encompassing a shift to a modular organization with a value stream focus, our client is now looking to ramp up its System Architecture & Engineering capabilities with the hiring of a Senior Director, System Architecture & Engineering.
The Senior Director, System Architecture & Engineering will lead and manage a team of Senior Systems Engineers who will architect devices for the future hardware/software platform of the company. The architecture team will select technologies and determine the broad technical direction for our client’s devices, and focus on simplifying, standardizing, and making all devices current, scalable, and supportable. The Senior Director, System Architecture & Engineering will assign engineers to value stream teams, to support the overall technical and business objectives of the underlying programs. This role, and the underlying team, will also work extensively with their counterparts within the value stream – hereunder Value Stream Owners in Corporate Marketing and Value Stream Leads in Global Innovation – as well as with other parts of the organizations to ensure devices meet the needs of broader enterprise applications and determine interfacing/integration requirements.
POSITION PROFILE
Position title:
Sr. Director, System Architecture & Engineering
Reporting line:
Chief R&D Officer
Location:
Greater Copenhagen
Traveling:
15-20 days per year
Responsibilities & Tasks:
· Overall system architecture owner.
· Responsible for ensuring that system architecture fulfills the strategic needs of Ambu, and customers, now and in the future, while ensuring the technical realization of requirements.
· Managing and leading a staff of senior, highly talented engineers responsible for the broad technical direction of Ambu devices.
· Collaborating with technical and business leaders throughout the company, to collectively determine technical needs, strategy, and direction for the future product portfolio of the company.
· Planning and evaluating architectural design while reviewing system performance.
· Developing systems architecture roadmaps with value stream owners, platform/module owners and EVP, Global Innovation while ensuring a strong architectural runway for major initiatives and necessary system designs.
· Acting thought leader and organizational driver for architectural needs as part of the planning process.
· Working with upper management to establish a technology research strategy and roadmap.
· Monitoring team performance, providing timely and critical feedback on a regular cadence, establishing plans for improvement when necessary, and providing performance checkpoints with each direct report.
· Providing timely status updates to upper management as needed.
· Identifying systems architecture/engineering process improvements and enforcing the execution of them across the organization.
· Maintaining technical knowledge and understanding of the latest development methodologies and best practices by participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining personal networks, and participating in professional organizations.
· Ensuring adequate communication and training around system architecture/modularization.
Key success criteria:
· Successfully driven and championed modularization thinking across all of Ambu – hereunder succeeded in ensuring that all stakeholders have seen the benefits and supported re-use and efficient product development.
· Successfully ensured that the total architecture is flexible, with interfaces in the right places and that it is easily understood/workable by all parties involved in innovation/R&D and product development.
· Successfully ensured a seamless collaboration with key stakeholders – hereunder EVP, Global Innovation, Platform Owners, Value Stream Owners, NPD Project Managers etc.
· Successfully ensured effective definition of platforms, modules and interfaces in a way that has:
o Fulfilled user needs to a maximum degree.
o Increased possibility for re-use/combination.
o Allowed for improvement of certain system parts without changing the rest.
Made logical/easy to understand, and facilitated efficient organizing of platform/module development.
CANDIDATE PROFILE
Educational background:
B.Sc. or M.Sc.—level in Engineering or related field
Language:
English – fluent (verbally and written)
Ideal experience and competencies:
· 10+ years’ experience with multi-technical environments and technical roles within complex product development programs, preferably including software design/development responsibilities.
· Expert level understanding of current design and development methodologies for software controlled electro-mechanical devices or like.
· Experience with making technology and architectural decisions that are essential for long-term product/platform/service success.
· Excellent functional management experience (managing a group of direct or indirect reports, being able to build high performing teams and structure organizations).
· Demonstrated systems thinker with broad capabilities in looking beyond the components of the system understanding how they are all integrated together to form the holistic system.
Personal competencies:
Visionary/strategic mind
Defines a clear vision while making clear impact. Looks beyond the immediate difficulties and focuses on the far-reaching consequences; sees things in a broad perspective; takes tendencies in the environment into account when planning and developing strategies.
Responsibility and ownership
Assumes responsibility for assigned projects and tasks, sets direction, takes control and ensures that colleagues and team members possess clear understanding of project targets, tasks and responsibilities.
Perseverance
Is undeterred and persistent despite conflict, resistance and difficulties, carries on when faced with adversity.
Communication
Communicates the central issues in a discussion in a clear, fluent and precise manner and is able to keep the recipients' attention. Is attentive to the needs of others when speaking and produces written material which is easy to understand.
Structure and follow up
Works systematically, organizes work and effort and is methodical in one's performance. Holds on to commenced tasks and projects, takes action and organizes resources. Direct others toward successful execution of tasks, drives projects forward, makes things happen and follows through. Plans actions to secure optimal use of time and resources, compares achieved results to set objectives and follows up on delegated tasks and decisions.
Inspiration and motivation
Inspires others and encourages the achievement of set goals by promoting a sense of purpose. Believes in him- or herself and empathetically provides inspiration for a positive work attitude and prompts a strong wish to succeed in the team.
Stakeholder management and personal relations
Is able to establish and maintain relations with people at all levels and makes people feel at ease. Achieves agreement by dealing with disagreements and potential conflicts with diplomatic skills and develops and maintains networks.
Planning and time management
Plans a focused course of action for self and team, ensures appropriate assignment of tasks and schedules an optimal use of available resources. Is conscious of the timing related to work and effort, meets deadlines and plans tasks in relation to use of time.
Results and goal orientation
Establishes visible and achievable goals for the department. Focus on action, activities and results. Is able to continue working at a specific problem, viewpoint or action plan until a result has been achieved or it is determined that an alternative approach is needed.
For further information:
For more info please contact:
Sebastian Brabrand
Research Associate
M: +45 2233 2927
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