Operational Excellence, Instrumentation R&D Lead (AI)

Location: Lake Forest, CA, United States; the role is on-site at the main campus, although the posting also lists Remote.

Salary: $254,150–$328,900 annually.

Company

hirify.global develops products and solutions focused on eye health and vision care, with a global organization of more than 25,000 associates.

What you will do

• Establish organizational-health, product-development-excellence, and performance-management frameworks for a global Instrumentation R&D organization.
• Use performance data, employee listening, stakeholder feedback, and operating observations to identify systemic barriers and define improvement priorities.
• Map end-to-end workflows, reduce bottlenecks, rework, delays, handoffs, and duplication, and lead Lean and structured problem-solving initiatives.
• Partner with product, technical, quality, operations, and launch-readiness leaders to improve development flow, predictability, quality, risk retirement, reuse, and launch readiness.
• Evaluate and pilot analytics, automation, digital tools, modeling, simulation, and artificial intelligence; validate results and scale successful practices.
• Build standards, playbooks, dashboards, training, and internal capability while tracking adoption, benefits realization, and sustained outcomes.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent directly related experience; equivalent combinations include high school plus 18 years, associate degree plus 14 years, master’s degree plus 7 years, or PhD plus 6 years.
• At least 10 years of relevant experience.
• Fluent English reading, writing, comprehension, and communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, science, industrial engineering, operations management, business, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated success improving complex product-development or engineering organizations in an R&D environment.
• Experience leading cross-functional transformation from diagnosis through implementation, adoption, value realization, and sustainment in a global matrix organization.
• Strong knowledge of Lean, Six Sigma, structured problem solving, process design, change management, KPI systems, organizational-health measurement, and benefits realization.
• Experience using data visualization, analytics, automation, AI, or other digital technologies to improve decisions, productivity, quality, or organizational effectiveness.

Nice to have

• Advanced degree.
• Experience in medical devices, healthcare technology, life sciences, or another regulated industry.
• Lean Six Sigma certification or equivalent practical expertise.
• Change-management or project-management certification.

Culture & Benefits

• Inclusive, global environment focused on improving sight, patient outcomes, and customer impact.
• Health, life, retirement, flexible time off, and other benefits.
• Focused career growth and development opportunities.
• Travel of up to 20%.
• Visa sponsorship is not available, and relocation support is not provided.