The Vice President of Engineering (VPE) will report directly to CEO Peter Poulin and serve as GRC’s senior leader for engineering strategy and execution. The title could flex to SVP or EVP for an exceptional candidate. The executive will partner closely with Product Management, Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, Sales, Service, Finance, and the executive team. This is a high-visibility operating role with the immediate opportunity to lead multiple product development collaborations during this formative stage growth chapter.

The VPE will lead GRC’s multidisciplinary product development organization and establish the strategy, operating system, and talent required to deliver industry-leading cooling solutions. The executive will translate customer and market requirements into an integrated roadmap spanning mechanical and electrical systems, embedded software and firmware, controls, heat rejection, power infrastructure, compliance, and intellectual property. The scope increasingly extends beyond cooling products to complete edge and modular data center platforms.

The VPE has both a technical leadership and enterprise operating charter, owning the development lifecycle from architecture and requirements through verification, validation, release, and sustaining engineering. A central priority will be building a productive partnership with GRC’s newly established Product Management function so customer demand and market evidence drive roadmap choices. The executive will build predictable portfolio execution while preserving GRC’s entrepreneurial speed and culture of invention.

The preferred candidate will bring meaningful experience with data center physical infrastructure, including advanced liquid cooling. Exposure to coolant distribution units for direct-to-chip GPU and CPU cooling is important. Experience with single-phase or two-phase immersion cooling is strongly preferred. The leader must be capable of evaluating different cooling architectures objectively and positioning GRC’s technology roadmap against fast-changing compute and customer requirements.

Mandate –
– Set a long-term engineering and technology strategy tied to customer needs, business priorities, and differentiated intellectual property.
– Build an accountable, high-performing multidisciplinary engineering organization with strong functional leaders and succession depth.
– Create rigorous, transparent execution across the product portfolio, improving delivery against performance, cost, quality, and schedule objectives.
– Strengthen design governance through early and recurring reviews, requirements management, configuration control, and disciplined engineering change processes.
– Partner across the enterprise to bring products from concept through commercialization, manufacturing scale-up, field deployment, and continuous improvement.
– Increase GRC’s influence in the technical ecosystem through standards bodies, partners, customers, patents, and thought leadership.

First Year Priorities –
– Assess roadmap, active programs, talent, tools, development processes, technical risk, and resource allocation.
– Complete an effective transition with John Bean and assume full day-to-day ownership of engineering execution.
– Convert the two-track edge and modular platform strategy into a sequenced, customer-informed product roadmap with clear investment choices.
– Align leadership on portfolio priorities and establish visible milestones, decision rights, and operating cadence.
– Improve cross-functional product introduction and engineering change control.
– Clarify IP strategy and accelerate high-value invention identification and patent prosecution.
– Develop the organization and upgrade talent where required.

Core Responsibilities –
– Provide strategic and technical leadership for Engineering and establish long-term technology and product development roadmaps.
– Lead Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded Software and Firmware, Systems Engineering, and Compliance teams.
– Support Product Management in market opportunity assessment, product ideation, requirements definition, and roadmap prioritization.
– Direct architecture, detailed design, verification and validation, product release, and sustaining engineering.
– Lead early and routine design reviews with Product Management, Manufacturing, Quality, and Service to align key decisions and surface risk.
– Develop program schedules, allocate resources, monitor execution, and deliver against performance, cost, quality, and schedule commitments.
– Select, scope, and manage outsourced engineering partners when external capability or capacity is required.
– Oversee invention disclosure, patent strategy, portfolio development, and coordination with outside counsel for domestic and international filings.
– Chair the Engineering Change Order Committee and provide administrative oversight of engineering change governance.
– Establish disciplined use of PDM and PLM systems, requirements management, configuration control, and enterprise product development tools.
– Coach direct reports, develop engineering leaders, manage performance, retain critical talent, and upgrade the organization as needed.
– Partner with Product Marketing, Manufacturing, Service, Sales, Operations, and Finance to ensure successful product introduction and continuous improvement.
– Represent GRC in ASHRAE, the Open Compute Project, and other relevant standards bodies and industry forums.
– Own engineering operating and capital budget performance and communicate progress, tradeoffs, and risk clearly to executive leadership.

Measures of Success –
– On-time delivery of committed product roadmap milestones.
– Industry-leading innovations that create measurable customer value.
– Improvement in engineered product quality and cost improvements.
– Performance within approved engineering operating and capital budgets.
– Stronger organizational capability, leadership development, retention of critical employees, and selective talent upgrades.
– Granted patents and intellectual property that create defensible competitive barriers.

Knowledge & Competencies –
– 15+ years product development within data center infrastructure, thermal management, power systems, or related industries.
– 7+ years engineering leadership managing multidisciplinary engineering organizations.
– PDM/PLM systems and enterprise product development and manufacturing software.
– Data center physical infrastructure including cooling systems, power systems, and site monitoring platforms.
– Developing and managing technology roadmaps and engineering project portfolios.
– Patent prosecution including invention disclosure, portfolio development, and coordination with outside patent counsel for domestic and international filings.
– Engineering processes, design reviews, requirements management, configuration management, and engineering change control.
– Strong organizational, leadership, and mentoring skills with the ability to build high-performing engineering teams.
– Ability to manage multiple complex projects in a fast-paced environment while maintaining attention to quality and execution.

KEY QUALIFYING CRITERIA