Director, Product Engineering
Fortrea · Warsaw
The Director, Product Engineering is responsible for leading one or more product engineering organizations, building high-performing engineering teams, and delivering secure, scalable, reliable, and AI-enabled digital products that accelerate business outcomes.
This leader is accountable for supporting engineering strategy, product delivery, technical modernization, engineering excellence, organizational effectiveness, developer productivity, and continuous innovation across multiple products, platforms, and technology domains.
The Director partners closely with Product Management, Architecture, Platform Engineering, Quality Engineering, Security, Data & AI, Infrastructure, and Business stakeholders to support technical strategy, execute product roadmaps, modernize engineering capabilities, and continuously improve software delivery performance.
This role champions AI-assisted software engineering, cloud-native development, platform engineering, DevSecOps, engineering excellence, and modern software development practices while fostering a culture of ownership, software craftsmanship, innovation, customer obsession, accountability, and continuous learning.
Hybrid Role in Warsaw.
Summary of Responsibilities:
- Lead multiple Product Engineering teams and Engineering Managers responsible for delivering enterprise products, platforms, APIs, and digital experiences aligned with business strategy and customer outcomes.
- Support and execute engineering strategy, delivery models, operating principles, and execution plans that support long-term product roadmaps and organizational objectives.
- Build world-class engineering organizations by recruiting, mentoring, coaching, and developing Engineering Managers, architects, technical leaders, and software engineers while establishing strong succession planning and leadership development programs.
- Partner with Product Management to maximize customer value through iterative product delivery, continuous discovery, customer feedback, experimentation, and data-driven prioritization.
- Drive successful execution of engineering initiatives while ensuring delivery predictability, software quality, security, scalability, operational readiness, customer satisfaction, and business value.
- Lead technical modernization initiatives including cloud-native development, microservices, event-driven architectures, API-first design, platform engineering, containers, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, automation, and reusable engineering platforms.
- Champion adoption of AI-assisted software engineering tools and intelligent development practices that improve developer productivity, code quality, automated testing, documentation, release management, and engineering effectiveness.
- Partner with Data & AI teams to integrate Artificial Intelligence capabilities into customer-facing products, engineering platforms, and internal engineering workflows.
- Evaluate emerging technologies, AI platforms, engineering tools, frameworks, and software development practices that accelerate innovation and improve engineering outcomes.
- Support engineering excellence standards including software craftsmanship, coding standards, architecture governance, pull request quality, technical debt management, secure coding practices, release readiness, and continuous improvement.
- Improve developer experience through modern engineering tooling, reusable engineering platforms, automation, self-service capabilities, and streamlined software delivery processes.
- Partner with Platform Engineering, DevOps, Quality Engineering, and Security teams to support modern engineering platforms, CI/CD pipelines, DevSecOps practices, automated quality gates, and secure software delivery.
- Manage engineering health metrics, reliability objectives, observability, production readiness, operational support models, and continuous service improvement.
- Monitor engineering performance using DORA Metrics, deployment frequency, lead time for change, change failure rate, mean time to recovery (MTTR), engineering productivity, software quality, customer adoption, and operational performance indicators.
- Partner with Architecture teams to support technical strategy, evaluate technology investments, modernize application architecture, and ensure alignment with enterprise technology standards.
- Lead workforce planning, organizational design, recruiting, resource planning, capacity management, and vendor strategy to support product and business growth.
- Manage engineering risks, cross-team dependencies, issue resolution, stakeholder communication, and executive reporting.
- Foster a high-performance engineering culture focused on ownership, software craftsmanship, innovation, collaboration, customer obsession, accountability, continuous learning, and engineering excellence.
- Manage budgets, technology investments, vendor relationships, strategic partnerships, and engineering resource planning.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Qualifications (Minimum Required):
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Engineering, or related discipline. Equivalent experience will be considered.
- Strong knowledge of modern software engineering, Product Engineering, cloud-native architectures, distributed systems, Agile methodologies, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and engineering excellence principles.
- Deep understanding of software architecture, microservices, API-first development, cloud computing, event-driven architectures, and scalable application design.
- Strong understanding of software quality, engineering governance, secure software development, operational excellence, reliability engineering, observability, and engineering modernization.
- Demonstrated ability to lead large-scale Product Engineering organizations, technology transformation initiatives, and globally distributed engineering teams.
- Strong executive communication, organizational leadership, stakeholder management, coaching, and strategic planning skills.
- Proven ability to influence business and technology leaders while driving organizational alignment and engineering transformation.
- Strong analytical, technical, and problem-solving skills with a focus on execution, customer value, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Experience (Minimum Required):
- 10+ years of progressive software engineering, Product Engineering, platform engineering, cloud engineering, or related technology experience.
- 5+ years leading Engineering Managers, technical leaders, architects, or multiple software engineering organizations.
- Demonstrated experience delivering enterprise-scale digital products, customer-facing applications, APIs, and cloud-native platforms.
- Proven success leading engineering organizations responsible for the complete software development lifecycle including architecture, design, development, testing, deployment, production support, and continuous improvement.
- Experience implementing AI-assisted software engineering practices that improve developer productivity, software quality, delivery velocity, and engineering effectiveness.
- Experience driving engineering modernization including cloud migration, microservices, Kubernetes, containers, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, and engineering automation.
- Experience supporting engineering standards, software craftsmanship practices, architecture governance, engineering maturity models, and technical excellence programs.
- Experience partnering with Product Management, Architecture, Platform Engineering, Data & AI, Security, Quality Engineering, Infrastructure, and Executive Leadership.
- Experience implementing engineering performance frameworks including DORA Metrics, engineering productivity measurements, software quality indicators, operational KPIs, and continuous improvement programs.
- Demonstrated success leading organizational transformation, technical modernization, cloud adoption, engineering culture initiatives, and software delivery improvements.
- Experience managing budgets, technology investments, workforce planning, vendor relationships, strategic sourcing, and organizational development.
- Experience building and leading globally distributed engineering organizations across multiple geographic regions.
Preferred Qualifications Include:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field.
- Experience within healthcare, life sciences, clinical research, medical devices, digital health, or other highly regulated industries.
- Experience leading enterprise Product Engineering organizations responsible for customer-facing SaaS platforms, digital products, and enterprise applications.
- Experience implementing AI-assisted software engineering using GitHub Copilot Enterprise, GitHub Models, Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, ChatGPT Enterprise, or similar developer productivity platforms.
- Experience building AI-enabled products using Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), conversational AI, AI agents, intelligent automation, recommendation engines, or machine learning services.
- Experience integrating Azure OpenAI, OpenAI APIs, Anthropic Claude, Azure AI Services, Google Vertex AI, or equivalent enterprise AI platforms.
- Familiarity with Responsible AI principles, prompt engineering, AI governance, model evaluation, AI security, and enterprise AI software development.
- Experience with Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Platform Engineering, API Management, Infrastructure as Code, and cloud-native application development.
- Experience implementing Engineering Excellence, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Developer Experience (DevEx), and engineering productivity initiatives.
- Relevant certifications in Cloud Architecture, Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, AI Engineering, Agile Delivery, Software Architecture, Technology Leadership, or related disciplines.
- Demonstrated success leading engineering transformation initiatives that improve software quality, developer productivity, engineering velocity, operational excellence, customer outcomes, and business value.
- Proven track record of developing future engineering leaders, building strong leadership benches, and creating high-performing engineering organizations recognized for innovation, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
Physical Demands / Work Environment:
Office/Home-Based:
Work Environment:
- Work is performed in an office environment with exposure to electrical office equipment.
- Occasional drives to site locations with occasional travel both domestic and international.
Physical Requirements:
- Frequently stationary for 6-8 hours per day.
- Repetitive hand movement of both hands with the ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Occasional crouching, stooping, with frequent bending and twisting of upper body and neck.
- Ability to access and use a variety of computer software developed both in-house and off-the-shelf.
- Light to moderate lifting and carrying, or moving of objects, including luggage and laptop computer with a maximum lift of 15-20 lbs.
- Regular and consistent attendance.
- Varied hours may be required.
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