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Technical Director

Posted 8 hours 41 minutes ago by Top End jobs

£100,000 - £125,000 Annual

Permanent

Full Time

Other

Somerset, Wellington, United Kingdom, TA210

Job Description

Technical Director Overview

Role Purpose: Accelerate innovation and deliver new product introduction (NPI) that is successful in existing and new markets through delivery of design strategy.
Board Role: Share high-level priority-setting with the board; translate strategy into decisive roadmaps, resources, and delivery.
Team Context: Lead a cross-functional design engineering team; work through a direct report manager to remove blockers, focus effort, and raise the pace.

Outcomes

NPI Throughput: Increase NPD delivery (2-3 new product launches in first year).
Innovation Pipeline: Build a validated, board-aligned pipeline.
Market Fit & Customer Proof: Systematic customer validation at key stages.
Design Quality & Reliability: Prototype validation and prevention of scope creep.
Team Focus: Reduce scope creep; establish weekly cadence and WIP limits; improve engagement scores and cycle predictability.

Accountability

Owns: Design strategy execution, engineering standards, resource allocation within design, stage-gate discipline, technical risk management.
Influences: Product portfolio priorities, pricing/positioning, investment cases; collaborates with Ops and Finance on trade-offs.
Commits: Delivery against board-agreed roadmaps; transparent reporting of risk/mitigation; escalation before schedule slips.

Core Responsibilities

Set Pace & Focus: Translate Board priorities into monthly design KPIs.
Gateway Leadership: Install gateways with stakeholder validation, DFMEA, and reliability targets.
Technical Direction: Define architecture choices, platform strategy, and standards; arbitrate key technical decisions.
Responsibility range: Research and discovery to production-ready.
Resource & Capacity: Balance team workloads through manager (direct report); consultant and specialist management; fix bottlenecks (test, tooling, supplier readiness).
Customer & Market Integration: Embed structured voice-of-customer; ensure requirements are testable, traceable, and risk-rated.
Standards and Regulations: Embed compliance with industry and business standards into team and product design structure.
Technology Integration: Embed structured AI, 3D printing and robotics into a design-for-manufacture structure.
Quality & Lifecycle: Drive design-for-manufacturability, serviceability, and cost; own design transfer to manufacturing.
Board Engagement: Provide clear dashboards on pipeline, risks, and investment needs; propose stop/go/accelerate decisions.
Talent & Culture: Coach senior engineers; encourage deep work and high-leverage innovation; raise standards without micromanaging.