Head of Navigation Solutions

Location: Sydney, Australia

Department: R&D

OVERVIEW OF ROLE 

As the Head of Navigation Solutions, you are the senior strategic leader responsible for driving the evolution and commercial success of Advanced Navigation’s flagship navigation vertical. This is a high-impact role requiring a "founder mentality" to oversee the holistic success of your product line, from R&D and engineering through to market adoption and long-term support.

You will lead a cross-functional group of experts, including Engineering, Product, Sales, and Support, ensuring they are aligned with a singular vision. Your leadership style focuses on context over control, empowering your team to solve the world’s most complex positioning and navigation challenges while delivering high-impact business outcomes for our global clients.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES 

Vertical ownership: Hold end-to-end responsibility for the Navigation Solutions portfolio, including strategic roadmap development, high-stakes delivery, and P&L/budget management.

Performance governance: Establish clear, ambitious Product Team OKRs and implement robust performance monitoring. You own the delivery cadence and the continuous improvement of internal processes.

Strategic resource allocation: Prioritize and deploy resources across the team to maximize portfolio output, ensuring engineering efforts align with commercial opportunities.

Cross-functional orchestration: Serve as the "glue" between Engineering, Product Management, Sales, and Customer Support to ensure products are built, sold, and maintained with excellence.

Culture leadership: Foster a high-performance, empowered culture that prioritizes meaningful outcomes over mere output, encouraging innovation and technical bravery.

Stakeholder & ecosystem collaboration: Drive collaboration across other Product Teams (e.g., Robotics, Software Platforms) to maintain a unified technology ecosystem and align with external strategic stakeholders.

Talent strategy: Manage team resourcing and professional development. You are responsible for maintaining high "talent density," ensuring the team has the skills required to execute industry-leading projects.

Executive interface: Act as the primary conduit between the Navigation Solutions team and the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), translating technical progress into strategic business updates.

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE & SKILLS 

Degree in Engineering (Mechatronics, Electronics, or Aerospace preferred), Business, or a related technical field. An MBA or advanced technical degree is highly regarded.

10+ years of Technology Leadership: A proven track record of leading senior teams and delivering complex, high-reliability hardware/software systems to a global market.

5+ years of experience in the Product centric organisations and leadership roles. Experience with Product discoveries, design thinking, Agile delivery & Product Management over the lifecycle

P&L Management: Experience managing significant budgets and the financial complexities of high-tech product lifecycles.

Deep Tech Exposure: Familiarity with navigation systems, inertial sensors, GNSS, or robotics is preferred.

Inspired Leadership: The ability to motivate elite technical teams through vision, empathy, and clear communication.

Strategic Financial Planning: Competence in long-term financial modeling, budget forecasting, and ROI analysis for new product developments.

Conflict Management: Exceptional interpersonal skills with the ability to navigate and resolve friction between cross-functional departments.

Decision-Making: A decisive leader who can make high-stakes calls in ambiguous environments based on data and strategic context.

About the Company

Advanced Navigation is the world’s most determined innovator in AI robotics and navigation technologies across land, air, sea and space applications. Founded on a culture of research and discovery, Advanced Navigation's mission is to be the catalyst of the autonomy revolution. Fields of expertise include artificial intelligence, underwater sonar, GNSS, radio frequency systems, inertial sensors, robotics, quantum sensors and photonics. 

Today, Advanced Navigation is a supplier to some of the world's largest companies, including Airbus, Boeing, Google, Tesla, NASA, Apple, and General Motors. Discover it for yourself: https://youtu.be/F7uAqs1gtuk