Vice President of Engineering

Position Summary

The Space, Cyber and Directed Energy Segment Vice President of Engineering serves as the senior engineering authority for the segment and is responsible for establishing the technical vision, engineering rigor, and product development discipline required to support a rapidly scaling portfolio of defense and national security programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Engineering Governance
  Serve as the senior engineering authority across the segment portfolio. Establish engineering standards, technical review processes, and development rigor appropriate for both services and product organizations. Ensure technical execution aligns with customer mission requirements, affordability targets, schedule commitments, and long-term product strategy. Drive engineering best practices across systems engineering, software, hardware, integration, test, cybersecurity, reliability, and manufacturing readiness. Lead independent technical assessments and support executive decision-making related to technical risk, investment priorities, and program execution.

• Product Development & Productization
  Support the transition from bespoke engineering efforts to scalable, repeatable product solutions. Ensure engineering organizations are structured to move rapidly while maintaining technical discipline and mission assurance. Promote modular architectures, common product frameworks, reuse strategies, and product commonality across programs. Partner with manufacturing and operations teams to improve producibility, reliability, and lifecycle affordability. Drive engineering alignment with enterprise initiatives focused on speed, agility, commercialization, and rapid deployment.

• Partnership with CTO & Enterprise Engineering Alignment
  Partner directly with the CTO to flow enterprise engineering strategies, processes, tools, and governance into the segment. Support implementation of common engineering frameworks, digital engineering approaches, model-based systems engineering, and enterprise product development standards. Ensure engineering organizations adopt enterprise technology roadmaps and modernization initiatives where appropriate.

• Talent Strategy & Organizational Development
  Support engineering workforce planning, hiring strategies, succession planning, and capability development across the segment. Monitor engineering staffing requirements against strategic growth objectives. Help shape future engineering organizational structures, including eventual establishment of Chief Engineer roles aligned to business units or product portfolios. Foster a culture centered on accountability, innovation, technical excellence, collaboration, and mission focus.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  Partner closely with: Business Unit leaders, Program Management, Manufacturing & Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Growth & Capture, Security and Contracts. Support customer engagements, technical roadmap discussions, milestone reviews, and strategic captures. Participate in executive operating rhythms including program reviews, investment reviews, and annual operating planning activities.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related technical field required; advanced degree preferred.

• 15+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience within defense, aerospace, space, directed energy, RF systems, autonomous systems, or related national security sectors.

• Demonstrated experience leading complex engineering organizations supporting both development and production environments.

• Strong background in systems engineering, product development, and transition to manufacturing.

• Experience operating within high-growth, fast-paced technology organizations.

• Ability to balance technical rigor with speed and execution urgency.

• Experience collaborating across enterprise engineering and business leadership organizations.

• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage effectively with executives, customers, and technical teams.

Preferred Experience

• Experience supporting defense acquisition programs, rapid prototyping efforts, and productized defense systems.

• Familiarity with digital engineering, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), and modern product development environments.

• Experience scaling engineering organizations following acquisition or integration activities.

• Background supporting products transitioning from R&D into operational deployment and production scale-up.

Leadership Expectations

• People First Culture
  Innovate & Simplify
  Dedicated to Customers
  Evolve to Dominate

Salary Range

$245,500 - $393,000

ITAR Requirement

This position requires access to information that is subject to compliance with the International Traffic Arms Regulations ("ITAR") and/or the Export Administration Regulations ("EAR"). In order to comply with the requirements of the ITAR and/or the EAR, applicants must qualify as a U.S. person under the ITAR and the EAR, or a person to be approved for an export license by the governing agency whose technology comes under its jurisdiction. Please understand that any job offer that requires approval of an export license will be conditional on AeroVironment’s determination that it will be able to obtain an export license in a time frame consistent with AeroVironment’s business requirements. A “U.S. person” according to the ITAR definition is a U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or protected individual such as a refugee or asylee. See 22 CFR 120.15. Some positions will require current U.S. Citizenship due to contract requirements.

About AV

AeroVironment is an Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes all qualified applicants. Qualified applicants will receive fair and impartial consideration without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetic data, sexual orientation, gender identity or other legally protected status. ITAR U.S. Citizenship required.