WHAT DOES A HEAD OF ENGINEERING DO?

Published: Jan 09, 2025 - The Head of Engineering collaborates closely with key stakeholders in Product, Design, and Sales, delivering results and navigating roadblocks in a dynamic, high-growth environment. Establishes and drives a long-term vision and innovation in emerging spaces, holding managers accountable for critical results and prioritizations. Leads cross-functional teams, manage development budgets, and engages third-party partners to maintain high efficiency and achieve strategic objectives.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Head of Engineering

1. Head of Engineering Duties

  • People Management: Manage the Engineering Department activities, people management, workload, and resources management.
  • Competency Assurance: Ensure the engineering maturity and right level of competency for the daily operation and business development.
  • Sales Support: Provide support to the Sales and Bid Team for the pre-sales and bid support over the Pacific region.
  • Opportunity Capture: Collaborate with different entities to capture new opportunities and customers.
  • Process Adherence: Ensure the company Engineering process and practice are followed properly.
  • Quality Maintenance: Maintain the quality of works and ensure the engineering initiatives are well communicated and achieved.
  • Team Leadership: Lead the engineering team and commit to the key activities.
  • Design Support: Support the design review and technical offer.
  • Cost Validation: Validate the cost estimation and the commercial offer.
  • Code Review: Review code for clarity and good coding standards.
  • Mobile Development: Design and build mobile applications using Flutter frameworks.
  • Technical Architecture: Work closely with other technical specialists for the technical architecture of features.
  • Feature Definition: Collaborate with and guide other team members to define app features and dependencies.
  • Quality Assurance: Ensure the quality and performance of the application to specifications.
  • Problem Solving: Identify potential problems and resolve application performance bottlenecks.
  • App Publishing: Publish applications on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
  • App Updates: Design and implement application updates.

2. Head of Engineering Details

  • Organization Building: Build the right organization to deliver on company goals and OKRs.
  • Team Development: Develop and grow a high-velocity delivery team focused on building the right work at the right quality at the right time.
  • System Development: Drive the vision, strategy, and implementation of developing new systems and the ongoing improvements of current systems.
  • Platform Stability: Be responsible for feature deployment, the stability of the business’s core platform, and the overall quality of the business’s application architecture.
  • Culture Building: Be a key stakeholder in building a company-wide culture of service, accountability, growth, and collaboration.
  • Talent Attraction: Drive the development of a team and culture that makes TA a magnet for top talent.
  • Delivery Optimization: Lead the development of effective delivery practices, team structures, and team behaviors.
  • Team Strategy: Be effective working with a blended team of in-office, remote, and off-shore resources, and have strategies for building teams that are not always physically co-located.
  • Investment Balancing: Strategically balance investment in the architecture, ‘ilities’, and non-functional requirements of systems while delivering on an aggressive slate of product features.
  • Mentorship: Mentor and coach managers and ICs to create healthy and high-velocity engineering teams.
  • Representation: Represent the engineering team in clients customer conversations, course-grained planning, quarterly road mapping sessions, BOD meetings, etc.
  • Career Coaching: Coach direct reports to have a positive impact on the organization and chart a fulfilling career path.
  • Vision Collaboration: Collaborate with engineers, designers, product managers, and senior leadership to turn vision into a tangible roadmap every quarter.
  • Project Management: Collaborate with Product and Engineering to break down complex projects into smaller pieces and iterate on design and implementation.
  • Work Facilitation: Facilitate the prioritization, sequencing, and staffing of work for the team.
  • Quality Assurance: Responsible for maintaining a high-quality bar for everything the team ships.

3. Head of Engineering Responsibilities

  • Team Leadership: Lead a team of high-performing engineers.
  • Performance Management: Responsible for the overall performance of engineering teams and helping to build great products.
  • Talent Development: Work closely with the engineering managers to build and lead a team of engineers through hiring, coaching, mentoring, feedback, and career development.
  • Strategic Collaboration: Work closely with the product leadership team (Moe & Jordan).
  • Vision Planning: Support strategic planning for product vision and work closely with the Head of Product to define timelines for new product teams to help achieve end-of-2022 goals.
  • Process Evolution: Evolving engineering processes to keep delivering customer value at speed.
  • Standardization: Ensuring consistency across teams for role responsibilities and levels and enhancing onboarding experience.
  • Inclusivity Focus: Build a diverse and inclusive team.
  • Diversity Advocacy: Work with People Lead to drive this initiative forward and be a champion for this across the business.
  • Maintenance Oversight: Oversight of the planned preventative maintenance program and reactive maintenance, ensuring all works are carried out to the standards required in appropriate timescales.
  • Process Improvement: Reviewing existing departmental systems and processes, propose and implement improvements.
  • Budget Management: Managing departmental budgets of approximately £2 million per annum.
  • Estate Management: Management of the Estate through a long-term vision of maintenance, estate development, and life cycle planning, informing capital and operational budget planning.
  • Safety Compliance: Working closely with the Head of Occupational Safety and Health to promote and ensure compliance.
  • IT Leadership: Operational and leading management as well as coordination and development of the entire IT department.
  • Tool Development: Planning & further development of internal tools (MERN stack) and store solutions (PHP based on Shopware).
  • Architecture Planning: Planning, creation and implementation of IT architectures.

4. Head of Engineering Accountabilities

  • Team Oversight: Preside over the entire Front end and Back end development teams, Mobile team, UX/UI, and Data with a total of up to 80 people.
  • Process Building: Partner with all levels of the organization to build processes and programs that scale the platform.
  • Team Management: Manage the day-to-day activities of the engineering teams as well as the management and execution of site/software development.
  • Resource Management: Manage the department's staffing, resources, and mentoring, and maintain a best-in-class engineering department.
  • Functional Delivery: Leads the engineering team in the delivery of platform functionality through a mix of development software and helps the team achieve and surpass departmental goals.
  • Policy Ownership: Take ownership of the engineering policy, guidelines, and any associated documents.
  • Resource Optimization: Oversee the optimal application of engineering resources in order to meet product development and consumer requirements and ensure the implementation of agile processes that support site/software development processes.
  • C-Level Integration: Close cooperation with the C-Level.
  • Engineering Integration: Integrating and leading all engineering teams, including the factory Manufacturing Engineering team.
  • DFA Management: Perform/lead resolution of DFA (Design for Assembly) issues, oversee NPI builds, help define WI and train operators, drive root cause analysis of problems found during assembly and test.
  • Testing Oversight: Perform/lead testing, validating, modifying, and implementing manufacturing tests as defined in a manufacturing test document.
  • SOP Management: Perform/lead SOP and WI preparation, process optimization, process issue solving/failure analysis, and overall yield data analysis and improvement for 1st pass yield UPH.
  • NPI Coordination: Focused on NPI builds, coordinates with NPI on-site team Customer Engineering design team, and R&D Team.
  • Project Leadership: Lead New projects with related internal/external teams to launch on time.

5. Head of Engineering Functions

  • Talent Strategy: Hire, develop, and retain leaders and senior technical leaders on the team to drive organizational strategy and goals.
  • Career Development: Participate and lead career development conversations, giving and receiving feedback, and providing technical and leadership suggestions to senior engineers or managers.
  • Stakeholder Collaboration: Collaborate closely with key stakeholders, Product, Design, and Sales to deliver results and navigate challenges or roadblocks in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
  • Accountability Management: Hold yourself and the managers reporting to you accountable for the inspection, oversight, prioritization, and delivery of the results needed by the organization.
  • Visionary Leadership: Establish and drive a long-term vision as well as innovation in a new and emerging space, and evangelize the organization to drive the business forward.
  • Strategy Communication: Regularly communicate the engineering perspective to the strategy and goal-setting of the organization.
  • Project Execution: Drives all engineering activities to execute projects and manages development budgets.
  • Team Coordination: Leads cross-functional teams in engineering and validation activities (electrical, mechanical, systems).
  • Planning Skills: Defines project plans and schedules.
  • Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Collaborates with sales, supply management, product design, industrial design, field operations, and manufacturing groups.
  • Conflict Resolution: Identifies and resolves conflicts.
  • Technical Leadership: Leading all aspects of development and all technical staff for this fastest-growing product line.
  • Team Management: Manage three teams - Vehicle Cybersecurity team with HW and SW expertise, Cloud Security and DevOps teams.
  • Partner Engagement: Engage 3rd party development partners and suppliers to achieve the highest levels of efficiency.
  • Product Development: Work closely with the product management teams when developing and delivering new product launches.
  • Diversity Leadership: Hire and retain a world-class and diverse team that will push the boundaries of innovation to deliver a strategic differentiator.
  • Architecture Strategy: Lay out the technology architecture for both immediate and long-term growth.
  • Vision Promotion: Evangelize the vision internally and externally