Director of Engineering

TruelineChicago, Illinois, United StatesOnsite

Trueline is seeking a Director of Engineering (PE) to join their team in Chicago, IL. This role leads engineering and technical design for live events, retail, corporate interiors, and custom installations ensuring structural integrity, innovation, and client satisfaction.

What You'll Do as the Director of Engineering (PE):

Lead and mentor a team of ~8 technical designers, sales engineers, and product developers.
Oversee structural design, analysis, and stamping of custom-built elements signage, LED, suspended installations, event structures—and ensure compliance with ANSI standards and manufacturer specs.
Perform wind load, uplift, dynamic forces, and stability calculations for indoor/outdoor venues like arenas, theaters, and trade shows.
Own departmental processes: scheduling, performance metrics, quality control, and continuous improvement using new software and AI tools.
Collaborate daily with Sales, Creative, and Project Management teams attending meetings, client visits, and occasionally traveling to installations.
Manage staffing logistics—schedules, overtime approvals, labor tracking—and implement corrective measures for client feedback.
Maintain and enhance training and documentation programs for engineering functions.

Must-Haves as the Director of Engineering (PE):

Licensed Professional Engineer (or able to quickly obtain IL reciprocity).
5+ years in structural engineering, especially in event/live experience sectors (signage, installations, temporary structures).
Experience supervising technical teams (8+ employees for 3+ years) and solving multi-level issues.
Proficient with Revit, Rhino, SolidWorks, structural design software; strong background in wind load and dynamic analysis.
Comfortable working with aluminum, steel, trusses, tensioned fabric, modular systems.
Familiar with entertainment industry safety and rigging standards.

Nice-to-Haves as the Director of Engineering (PE):

Background in low-volume, high-variability fabrication environments.
Hands-on experience with artistic/sculptural event installations.
Enthusiasm for process automation and AI-driven design tools.
Thrives in fast-paced, creative, deadline-driven settings.

This Role Offers:

Leadership role in a dynamic, innovation-focused company.
Opportunity to shape engineering processes and drive technical excellence.
Collaborative culture with cross-functional project exposure.
Competitive salary, benefits, and growth opportunities.

Trueline and its clients are unabashed equal-opportunity employers committed to a diverse workforce. We welcome smart and ambitious applicants and recruit, refer, hire, place, and promote without regard to race, color, gender, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, age, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law.

Life at Trueline

Who are we? As an independent, full-service marketing and consulting business based in Portland, Maine, we provide strategy, content and design for businesses, nonprofits and individuals in Maine and throughout the world. What do we do? Everything we do revolves around ROI–improving your bottom line. Through a rock-solid communication and branding strategy, we show you how to support and engage your employees, build your workforce, find new clients and support existing business. Here’s a snapshot of our services: Strategy: Branding and rebranding; mission statement; search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine results page (SERP); hiring and retention; fundraising; communicating with board members; personal branding (for executives); events and PR; advertising campaigns; product launches; social media campaigns and management. Design: Websites; logos; promotional material (digital and print); event guides; employee photos; drone video footage; custom magazines; advertisements. Content: Website text; speeches and keynotes; promotional text; employee bios; custom articles; social media posts; newsletters and internal emails; corporate reports. Custom Publishing: Vanguard, Equity, Toggle, Blueprint, Vision, Terra Firma What’s our mission? We want to help you solve real challenges–like growing your business, hiring and retaining employees, fundraising and keeping existing business. Our mission is to do this with honesty and integrity. Authenticity–it’s a good look on you. Why do we do this? We want to reimagine marketing. We want it to be less about the perfect image, and more about using good communication and branding as a way to engage with your employees and clients in successful and lasting relationships. Ultimately, we believe this approach will create a world where people come before profit, where the environment is respected and given back to, and where good business is synonymous with the best intentions.