Director, Remote Sensing

WGI; Huntsville (AL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental

Vision

LTD & STD

Life Insurance

401k with match

PTO

Holidays

HSA with company contribution

Pet insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Job summary

WGI seeks a Director of Remote Sensing to lead the operations and technical delivery of the Remote Sensing Department within the Geospatial Division. The role oversees staffing, equipment, processes, and quality systems to successfully execute airborne remote sensing programs and engage with leadership across departments.

The Director will provide strategic and operational leadership, ensuring risk oversight, scalable production, and high-quality deliverables across projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Geomatics, Surveying, GIS, Geography, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry or engineering preferred.
• 10+ years in LiDAR, photogrammetry or related geospatial disciplines with leadership experience.
• Experience leading technical teams and managing remote sensing production operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Remote Sensing Department's operations, staffing, capacity, and project delivery.
• Provide technical oversight for airborne LiDAR, imagery, and QA/QC procedures.
• Develop scalable production processes and optimize staff and equipment utilization.
• Ensure compliance with safety, aviation requirements, and QA/QC standards.
• Collaborate with project managers and clients to deliver high-quality geospatial data.

Skills

Leadership

Operations management

QA/QC

Project delivery

Staff development

Resource planning

Technical oversight

LiDAR

Imagery

Photogrammetry

GNSS/IMU

Automation

Scripting

Education

Bachelor's degree in Geomatics / related field

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

RiPROCESS

POSPac

TopoDOT

TerraSolid

Inertial Explorer

MicroStation

ArcGIS Pro

LP360

Leica/Cyclone

Job description

WGI is seeking a Director, Remote Sensing to lead the operations and technical delivery of our Remote Sensing Department within the Geospatial Division. This position is responsible for the people, technology, equipment, processes, and quality systems necessary to successfully execute WGI's airborne remote sensing programs while engaging with leadership of our other Departments.

The Director, Remote Sensing will provide strategic, operational, and technical leadership for the Remote Sensing Department. This individual is accountable for departmental performance, staff development, resource planning, technology and equipment strategy, quality, production capacity, and successful project delivery. The Director will maintain sufficient technical expertise to provide oversight, evaluate risk, support complex project decisions, and ensure appropriate technical leadership is available throughout the project lifecycle.

This individual will lead a multidisciplinary team of sensor operators, LiDAR analysts, imagery and photogrammetric professionals, and other geospatial technical staff while coordinating closely with project managers, surveyors, GIS professionals, and other WGI disciplines. The Director will be responsible for developing scalable production processes, maintaining high standards for quality and consistency, optimizing staff and equipment utilization, and ensuring that WGI remains at the forefront of remote sensing technology.

This is an in-office leadership position with travel required to support operations, projects, staff, clients, business development, and field activities.

At WGI, you will find talented, passionate associates providing exceptional service in collaborative, team-driven environments, all while having fun and enjoying the work they do. We work to stay ahead of the curve by investing in the latest tools and technology. As one of the nation’s top consulting firms, we consistently strive to promote efficiency, cultivate a culture our associates can proudly embrace, and empower our associates to advance their career growth at WGI and beyond.

WGI is always looking for remarkable individuals to join our team and help us grow in our vision. If you think you are an innovative, self-motivated team player, and want to shape your community, join our WGI team today!

Benefits

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• LTD & STD
• Life Insurance
• 401k with match
• PTO
• Holidays
• HSA with company contribution
• Pet insurance
• Employee Assistance Program

Responsibilities

• Operational Leadership: Lead the operations of WGI's Remote Sensing Department, including staffing, production capacity, equipment, resource allocation, workload balancing, project performance, and operational priorities. Establish scalable processes, accountability, and performance measures that support consistent, predictable, and profitable project delivery.
• Maintain visibility into backlog, production capacity, staffing availability, equipment utilization, and upcoming project demand to proactively identify resource constraints and develop appropriate staffing, subcontracting, scheduling, or technology solutions.
• Airborne Acquisition Operations: Provide operational oversight of airborne LiDAR and imagery acquisition programs. Ensure qualified technical personnel, appropriate equipment, documented procedures, quality controls, and adequate resources are in place to support safe, efficient, and successful acquisition.
• LiDAR & Imagery Production: Provide leadership and technical oversight for WGI's airborne, mobile, terrestrial, and UAS LiDAR and imagery production capabilities. Ensure production teams have effective workflows, appropriate technical leadership, adequate resources, and clearly defined quality standards from initial processing through final delivery.
• Quality Management: Develop, implement, and maintain comprehensive QA/QC procedures throughout the acquisition and production lifecycle. Establish measurable checkpoints for collection completeness, trajectory quality, relative and absolute accuracy, point density, imagery quality, calibration, classification, data integrity, metadata, and final deliverables. Perform quarterly audits to ensure Project Manager’s compliance to WGI’s established Quality Assurance Program.
• Technical Leadership: Maintain strong working knowledge of Remote Sensing technologies, methodologies, specifications, and industry standards. Provide technical oversight for complex projects, support technical decision-making, and ensure appropriate subject-matter experts are engaged to resolve specialized technical issues. Develop and empower technical leaders within the department rather than creating dependency on a single technical resource.
• Project Delivery: Maintain visibility across active Remote Sensing projects and proactively address schedule, staffing, technical, equipment, or quality issues that could affect successful delivery. Coordinate with project managers to establish realistic schedules, production plans, budgets, and resource requirements.
• People Leadership: Lead, mentor, develop, and evaluate Remote Sensing staff and technical leaders. Establish clear expectations, accountability, career paths, succession plans, and development opportunities. Identify staffing and training needs, build technical depth and redundancy, and develop future leaders capable of independently managing critical technical and operational functions.
• Equipment & Technology Management: Oversee the effective deployment, maintenance, calibration, and lifecycle planning of remote sensing sensors, GNSS/IMU systems, computing infrastructure, storage, and supporting equipment. Participate in evaluation and justification of significant technology and capital investments.
• Automation & Process Improvement: Promote automation, batch processing, scripting, and standardized production workflows to improve quality, repeatability, throughput, and cost efficiency. Identify production bottlenecks and implement measurable improvements.
• Technical Risk & Issue Resolution: Ensure complex technical, equipment, software, processing, and data-quality issues are appropriately escalated, investigated, and resolved. Facilitate root-cause analysis and ensure lessons learned are incorporated into standards, training, and operating procedures.
• Standards & Procedures: Establish and maintain departmental standards, standard operating procedures, production workflows, technical documentation, and QA/QC requirements to promote consistent execution across staff, offices, technologies, and projects.
• Financial & Resource Management: Assist with the development of department budgets, staffing plans, capital expenditures, equipment utilization, project performance, and resource forecasting. Monitor and manage to key operational and financial performance indicators and recommend corrective actions where appropriate.
• Business Development & Client Support: Support WGI's business development activities through technical presentations, proposal development, scopes of work, level-of-effort estimates, project approaches, and client meetings. Assist project managers and business development professionals in developing technically sound and competitive remote sensing solutions.
• Innovation: Evaluate emerging LiDAR, imagery, UAS, positioning, cloud-computing, AI/ML, and geospatial technologies. Recommend technologies and investments that improve WGI's capabilities, productivity, quality, or competitive position.
• Safety & Compliance: Promote a strong safety culture across airborne, vehicle-based, UAS, and field operations. Ensure departmental activities comply with WGI policies, applicable regulations, aviation requirements, client requirements, professional standards, and established operating procedures.
• Bachelor's degree in Geomatics, Surveying, GIS, Geography, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline preferred; advanced degree a plus.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in LiDAR, photogrammetry, remote sensing, surveying, mapping, or related geospatial disciplines, with significant experience leading technical teams and complex projects.
• Demonstrated experience managing remote sensing production operations involving multiple concurrent projects, staff, equipment, and significant volumes of geospatial data.
• Strong working knowledge of airborne LiDAR and imagery acquisition and production sufficient to provide technical oversight, evaluate project risk, and guide technical decision-making. Broad understanding of GNSS/IMU trajectory processing, sensor calibration, boresight adjustment, strip/swath alignment, relative and absolute accuracy, point cloud processing, imagery workflows, and geospatial QA/QC.
• Experience with mobile and terrestrial LiDAR and UAS LiDAR/imagery strongly preferred.
• Advanced knowledge of remote sensing data management, coordinate systems, projections, horizontal and vertical datums, transformations, survey control, and accuracy assessment.
• Experience developing and implementing documented production and QA/QC procedures.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex technical, operational, and production issues.
• Experience managing technical staff, developing employees, allocating resources, and improving operational performance.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects, schedules, priorities, and deadlines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to collaborate across WGI's Geospatial, Transportation, Civil, and Buildings disciplines and work effectively with project managers, technical leaders, clients, subcontractors, and partners.

Technical Experience

• Sensors/Platforms: RIEGL, Leica and Trimble LiDAR systems; airborne LiDAR and digital imagery systems; mobile mapping systems; terrestrial/static scanning; and UAS LiDAR and imagery platforms.
• Primary Software: RiPROCESS, Applanix POSPac and TopoDOT.
• Additional Software: TerraSolid, Inertial Explorer, MicroStation, ArcGIS Pro, LP360, Leica/Cyclone environments, GeoCue and other industry-standard LiDAR, photogrammetric, CAD and GIS applications.
• Processing: GNSS/IMU trajectory development; point cloud generation; calibration; boresight and strip adjustment; registration; classification; tiling; imagery processing; orthorectification; feature extraction; surface generation; accuracy assessment; and final deliverable development.
• Automation: Batch processing, scripting, macros, automated QA/QC and other approaches that increase production efficiency and repeatability.
• Data: Management of large point-cloud and imagery datasets, high-performance processing environments, network/cloud storage, metadata, archival and data-transfer workflows.

Preferred Licenses & Certifications

• ASPRS Certified Photogrammetrist (CP)
• ASPRS Certified Mapping Scientist - LiDAR (CMS-LiDAR)
• ASPRS Certified Mapping Technician - LiDAR (CMT-LiDAR)
• Professional Surveyor/Professional Land Surveyor licensure
• Surveyor Intern/LSIT certificationFAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate
• Other relevant geospatial, photogrammetric, aviation, project-management, or technical certifications

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the U.S. on a full-time basis. We are unable to sponsor or take over the sponsorship of employment visas.

In return, WGI provides a competitive salary and an outstanding work environment. WGI is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

Physical Demands

The physical demands are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Work is performed in an office setting. Hand-eye coordination is necessary to operate a computer, keyboard and mouse. Use of a telephone headset will allow for virtual communication with team members through Zoom and/or Microsoft Teams. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is often required to sit for prolonged periods, use hands/fingers to handle, feel or operate objects, tools or controls and reach with hands and arms, speak and hear. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.