Director - Design Assurance

Job Description We’re seeking a Director of Design Assurance to lead the strategic direction and execution of design and development quality across the products and solutions business. This role spans end-to-end solutions, with hardware & embedded systems design quality as the foundation. This role is responsible for building and leading a high-impact team focused on ensuring that our solutions are designed and developed to meet high standards of performance, reliability, regulatory compliance, and user experience.

This position owns design and development quality outcomes and is accountable for ensuring design intent, reliability targets, and regulatory requirements are fully realized through production and launch, in close partnership with factory, supplier, and software quality teams.

The Director will be the champion for quality in the product development lifecycle, ensuring that our solutions work seamlessly as a system and deliver a consistent, high-quality experience to our customers.

This role will serve as the design quality authority for the product development lifecycle, with responsibility to identify, quantify, and escalate design and reliability risks—and to influence go/nogo decisions based on objective quality and readiness criteria. The Director will lead the adoption of methodologies such as Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD) to proactively identify and mitigate risks. They will promote best practices in Design for Reliability (DfR) and Design for Testability (DfT), ensuring that quality is embedded from concept through launch. The role will also oversee the use of tools and techniques such as Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT/HASS), Accelerated Life Testing (ALT), Statistical Process Control (SPC), and structured Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methods like 5 Whys and Fishbone diagrams. Additionally, they will support requirements traceability and risk management using platforms such as Polarion, helping ensure robust documentation and compliance throughout the development process.

JOB DUTIES:

• Define and lead the quality strategy for end-to-end product design and development.
• Build and manage a cross-functional quality engineering team focused on system-level validation & verification and regulatory compliance.
• Drive integration of quality practices into the development lifecycle, including design reviews, risk assessments, and validation planning.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and Engineering teams to define quality KPIs and ensure alignment with customer expectations.
• Lead product compliance and regulatory certification efforts (e.g., UL, FCC, ENERGY STAR, RoHS, etc.).
• Ensure products meet all applicable agency, environmental, safety, RF and cybersecurity regulatory requirements.
• Ensure traceability and documentation for audits, certifications, and product approvals.
• Own relationships with external test labs and certification bodies; oversee test scheduling, documentation, and successful certification.
• Establish feedback loops from field data, customer support, and analytics to drive continuous improvement.
• Champion a culture of quality and reliability across the engineering organization.

MUST HAVE:

• 10+ years of experience in product development quality, validation, or compliance, with at least 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Proven success leading quality initiatives across hardware/software/firmware ecosystems including test automation.
• Demonstrated track record of build teams and structuring quality organizations.
• Experience with regulatory compliance and certification processes.
• Per our policy, subject to change, the ability to work in-office three days/week (Tu/Weds/Thurs) in adherence with our required hybrid work environment [Any one of the following Office Locations: Aurora, IL, Austin, TX, Golden Valley, MN or Melville, NY]

WE VALUE:

• Understanding of IoT technologies including embedded systems and end-to-end home management applications.
• Strong leadership, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience with customer experience testing, usability studies, or journey mapping.
• Familiarity with data analytics tools for field performance and quality insights.
• Background in reliability engineering and risk management.
• Experience in highly rigorous engineering environments, competitive technical programs, …