As an Engineering Director – VxWorks, you will lead a global engineering organization responsible for the development, delivery, evolution, and quality of the VxWorks real-time operating system and adjacent safety-certified products serving Aerospace, Defense, Government, Industrial, and other mission-critical markets.
You will be accountable for product delivery, technology strategy, organizational effectiveness, and execution against business commitments. Working closely with Product Management, Services, Sales, Customer Success, and executive leadership, you will ensure VxWorks continues to deliver industry-leading reliability, safety, security, and performance while supporting long-term growth objectives.
In this role, you will:
Lead and develop an organization of 75+ software engineers and engineering managers across multiple geographic locations.
Own execution and delivery of the VxWorks product roadmap, including safety-certified and security-focused capabilities.
Define and drive the long-term technical strategy and investment priorities for the VxWorks platform and related technologies.
Align engineering resources, organizational capacity, and development investments with product strategy, customer commitments, and revenue objectives.
Establish and monitor engineering performance metrics, driving continuous improvement in quality, productivity, delivery predictability, and customer satisfaction.
Provide executive-level visibility into program status, business impact, risks, dependencies, and mitigation plans.
Identify and proactively manage technical, schedule, product, and certification risks.
Champion a culture of engineering excellence, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Ensure successful delivery of mission-critical and safety-critical software that meets the highest standards of reliability, performance, safety, and security.
Lead participation in safety, security, compliance, and certification audits and regulatory reviews.
Ensure compliance with applicable standards and frameworks, including DO-178C, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, and customer cybersecurity requirements.
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Provide technical leadership in embedded systems, RTOS, virtualization, and system software architecture.
Drive adoption of modern engineering practices, including DevSecOps, automation, CI/CD, AI agentic workflows, and secure software development.
Partner with Product Management to translate market opportunities, customer requirements, and business objectives into executable roadmaps and engineering plans.
Collaborate with Services teams to enable customer-specific solutions while preserving platform scalability, maintainability, and certification objectives.
Support strategic customer engagements, executive briefings, customer escalations, and key account growth initiatives.
Develop organizational capability through talent acquisition, coaching, leadership development, and succession planning.
HOW YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE
Success in this role requires exceptional leadership, technical depth, operational rigor, and the ability to align engineering execution with business outcomes.
Experience
BTech/BE/MTech/ME Educational Background
12+ years of experience in embedded systems, platform software, operating systems, or related engineering disciplines.
7+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including responsibility for managers and multi-team organizations.
Demonstrated success delivering safety-critical, mission-critical, or revenue-critical software products at scale.
Required Qualifications
Proven experience leading large-scale engineering organizations delivering embedded software, operating systems, platform software, or safety-critical products.
Demonstrated success managing managers and scaling organizations to support strategic and revenue-critical business objectives.
Deep understanding of embedded systems, real-time operating systems, virtualization technologies, and system-level software architecture.
Experience defining technology strategy and driving multi-year platform evolution in partnership with product and business leaders.
Demonstrated experience with safety certification frameworks such as DO-178C, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, or equivalent standards.
Experience delivering software products in secure, highly regulated, or mission-critical environments.
Strong knowledge of modern software engineering practices, including DevSecOps, CI/CD, automation, AI agentic workflows, and secure development lifecycle processes.
Hands-on software development experience with C and C++.
Proven ability to balance technical priorities, customer commitments, product strategy, and business outcomes.
Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and customer engagement skills.
Experience collaborating effectively across Engineering, Product Management, Services, Sales, and Customer Success organizations.
Experience leading globally distributed teams and fostering high-performance engineering cultures.
Preferred Qualifications
Familiarity with cybersecurity compliance frameworks such as NIST SP 800-171, NIST 800-53, or equivalent standards.
Experience delivering certified software platforms for Aerospace & Defense, Industrial, Automotive, Medical, or other regulated industries.
Experience supporting strategic customer relationships, major account pursuits, or executive-level customer engagements.
WHY JOIN US? In a world increasingly driven by software innovation, Wind River is pioneering the technologies that accelerate the digital transformation of our customers with a new generation of mission‐critical AI systems—built for an AI‐first world with the most exacting safety, security, performance, and reliability standards. Our success depends on our ability to innovate with velocity and deliver solutions that help customers solve their toughest challenges.
Wind River is a global leader in mission‐critical intelligent systems. For more than four decades, we have been an innovator and pioneer, powering billions of systems that demand the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability. We support customers across automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications industries as they build the next generation of intelligent machines.
Wind River’s technology has supported historic achievements—from NASA’s Artemis I and the James Webb Space Telescope to multiple Mars rovers, as well as the world’s first successful 5G data session with Verizon and one of the largest Open RAN networks with Vodafone. With industry recognition for innovation, leadership, and workplace excellence—including global Great Place to Work certification and being named a “Top Workplace” for ten straight years—Wind River offers a culture built on growth mindset, customer focus, and diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging.
YOUR BENEFITS AT WIND RIVER · Named Top Workplace for the 10th year in a row · Wind River’s strong commitment to DEIB · Birthday and Volunteer Time Off · Competitive Salary & Benefits Package · Extensive Learning Programs · Wellness benefits through Unmind
APPLY TODAY, AND TOGETHER LET’S CHANGE TOMORROW! Wind River is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to diversity. We prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.
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About Aptiv
Founded 2009
Aptiv is a global technology company that develops safer, greener and more connected solutions, which enable the future of mobility.
