Vice President – Research and Development

The Vice President R&D role is a people manager with a functional expertise in one or more R&D disciplines: Development, Architecture, Quality Assurance, cross industry and/or cross product lines.They are accountable for people, projects, products, processes and strategic direction within the R&D team. Interact internally and externally with executive level management, requiring negotiation of extremely critical matters.Sets the specific vision and strategy initiatives for the group(s)/business unit(s) for R&D.Recognized as an influential leader.Inspires action, coordinates simultaneous initiatives.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to the President-RHC. Directly reporting up to this position can be Development, Quality Assurance and Architecture.

Essential Functions:

• People Management – interpersonal leadership, coaching, feedback, career development, performance assessments, objective setting, business goal alignment, hiring and disciplinary action as required
• Leadership – Communication within R&D, leadership peers, as well as leadership across Business, conflict resolution, meeting management, change management, adheres to ECi Software Solutions (ECI) Leadership Standards
• Methodology – Enable quality focused, predictable, and effective R&D processes (scrum, sdlc, accountability)
• Project management – Accountable for deliverables, estimates, planning, follow up and tracking, metrics, effectively handling ambiguous tasks and assignments
• Functional Expertise – Contribute to Individual area of expertise, project work, standards
• Allocation of people and resources to projects – Review and analyze product proposals submitted, and engineering designs to determine if strategic benefits are derived and, if possible, expenditures are justified for the benefits gained
• Investigate root cause and implement corrective action when necessary
• Demonstrate leadership skills founded on the ECI Core Values – motivating others by inspiring and creating leaders that deliver an extraordinary customer experience, recognize and reward performance within team
• Be able to think beyond area of control/domain to do what is right for the broader ECI organization
• Provide support and insight into significant organizational changes, including changing strategic focus, mergers and acquisitions, etc.
• Strong in program management execution, results driven, and ability to hold team accountable for end results setting appropriate milestones along the way to validate progress
• Requires strong critical thinking skills, planning, problem solving and interpersonal communication skills, ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing
• Embrace, inspire, and lead a department toward a quality culture with a focus on serving and satisfying customers, and aligning functional activities toward quality goals
• Protect company proprietary and confidential information

Qualifications and Requirements

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree preferred in Computer Science (or related field)
• 10+ years of experience in full life-cycle software development
• 5+ years of leadership responsibility
• People Management Skills – interpersonal leadership, coaching, feedback, career development, performance assessments, objective setting, business goal alignment, hiring & disciplinary action as required
• Leadership Skills – Communication within Engineering and peers across Business, conflict resolution, meeting management, change management, adheres to ECI Leadership Standards
• Department level business goal development and alignment to higher level goals
• Ability to predict and manage (i.e.: make and meet commitments)
• Align departments, teams and project objectives to ECI strategic goals
• Stimulate department cooperation to successfully complete their goals and objectives
• Foster a high-performance environment with a diverse set of resources
• Promote teamwork, collaboration, continuous process improvement, and an adaptive development environment
• Resolve cross department conflicts with a cool head, finesse and focus on business goals
• Objective analysis and resolution of complex people / customer / and business issues
• Ability to effectively convey defined vision on the department level

Special Requirements:

• Occasional travel