Director of Technology

This position is located at Techniks Tool Group in Indianapolis, INAbout the jobAbout Eppinger TechnologiesEppinger Technologies is a global leading mechanical engineering company supplying sophisticated, high-precision tooling systems and tool holding automation across the CNC machining space, with expertise and product offerings across the aerospace, robotics, medical, automotive, defense, and energy industries. The Company specializes in CNC spindle-to-workpiece technologies, with core product offerings spanning tool holders and tool holder accessories for turning and milling, presetting, workpiece holding, and deburring. Eppinger serves a global customer base that includes leading industrial companies such as Boeing, SpaceX, DN Solutions, HAAS, Mazak, KUKA, Magna, and others.Eppinger Technologies has 4 advanced manufacturing and distribution facilities located in Germany, India, and the U.S. and holds extensive direct relationships with machine tool OEMs, machine shops, and CNC equipment resellers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Eppinger Technologies is a portfolio company of ZCG Private Equity, the private equity arm of Z Capital Group, LLC (“ZCG”), a leading, privately held global firm.Eppinger operates as an integrated global platform across its trading companies, Eppinger Group and Techniks Tool Group, with a long-standing heritage in both the United States and Europe. Through its portfolio of registered product brands, including Eppinger®, Techniks®, Parlec®, and Quick-Lock BMT®, the Company has established itself as a leader in CNC high-precision tooling systems, delivering both off-the-shelf and custom-designed solutions to customers worldwide for over 100 years.Eppinger is building momentum across its platform, driven by strong performance and continued investment in advanced manufacturing capabilities. Eppinger has a strong foundation as a global leader in high-precision tooling, with differentiated engineering capabilities and a highly regarded product portfolio. We continue scaling the platform, investing in innovation, and delivering high-performance solutions to customers across critical industrial end markets.For more information, please visit https://eppingertechnologies.com. About the roleEppinger / Techniks is a global precision-engineering business operating across German, US, and Indian entities. Years of independent (prior to merger), site-by-site growth have left IT fragmented — on-premise servers and local data rooms at each location, siloed in-house and out-of-house support, aging infrastructure, fragmented software and hardware platforms, and mounting technology debt.We're hiring a Global Director of Technology to take full ownership of Eppinger's technology landscape and lead it out of that debt, allowing the organization to focus on value creation through technology; that is, we should reduce Tech Debt AND build a technology platform that will allow Eppinger / Techniks to win in the marketplace.This is a senior, hands-on leadership role: you'll set the strategy and drive execution; unifying IT operations, modernizing and securing infrastructure, building a global support team anchored in India, and putting the governance in place to scale technology alongside the business.This is a builder's (design & execute) mandate, not a caretaker's. You'll be measured on the tech debt you retire and the resilient, well-governed platform you leave in its place.Key responsibilitiesIT operating model and governance• Establish a unified, SLA-driven IT support model across the DE, US, and India entities, eliminating siloed ways of working.• Reduce the existing ticket backlog and stand up measurable, reportable service levels.• Implement scalable IT governance that supports the business as it grows.• Review and manage third-party vendors and services across all four business entities.• Own the IT budget end to end — from forecast to actuals — and present it monthly with variance against plan.Building and leading the global IT team• Build a dedicated IT team in India to serve as the central hub for global technology support.• Hire and develop an Enterprise Tech Lead in India to own the technical function and lead the team day to day.• Establish India-based capability for floor-level outage response and major technical support, anchored by cost-effective key hires.• Implement a shift-rotation model so support coverage spans the time zones of all three regions.• Build a lean, cost-efficient team to manage US and Germany operations, integrated with the India hub.Cloud and infrastructure modernization• Assess the current per-site, on-premise infrastructure and define the target architecture for each system, with a cloud-first preference that reduces the operational burden of self-managed hardware.• Where data-residency, regulatory, or compliance constraints apply — particularly for the German entities under NIS2 — determine the right destination (compliant cloud region or colocation) rather than forcing a single model.• Centralize Microsoft 365 onto a single global tenant for data resilience and continuity.• Replace end-of-life hardware and software.• Manage the RFP and migration for any workloads consolidated into a colocation facility.• Lead the cloud migrations of Epicor Prophet 21 and Abbas.Business continuity, disaster recovery, and backup• Eliminate critical business-continuity risk from the current model of unprotected on-premises servers and local data rooms.• Move backup and recovery off single physical sites as infrastructure migrates — cloud-first where appropriate, while respecting German and EU data-residency requirements.• Design and implement a backup strategy with defined retention, automated and regularly tested backups, and off-site/geographic redundancy.• Establish a formal DR / BCP framework with per-system RTO and RPO targets, documented recovery procedures, and scheduled DR testing.Information security and compliance• Achieve and maintain NIS2 compliance across all Eppinger entities, reducing EU legal exposure.• Build a proactive cybersecurity posture that protects against operational disruption from cyber threats.• Migrate sensitive systems off local infrastructure to the cloud, including India payroll (Spine) and, where the business prioritizes it, the Denkendorf Sage environment.Physical site security• Implement camera coverage across all sites and controlled-access measures at Denkendorf.What you'll bring• 15+ years in IT, with several in a senior leadership role (Director, Head of IT, or equivalent) owning strategy and delivery across multiple sites or countries.• Experience standing up or scaling an offshore IT hub, preferably in India.• Demonstrated success leading infrastructure modernization and cloud-migration programs from on-premise to cloud and/or colocation.• Strong grounding in cybersecurity and regulatory compliance, ideally including EU frameworks such as NIS2 and GDPR.• Hands-on experience designing and delivering DR / BCP and backup strategies with defined RTO/RPO targets.• Track record of building and leading distributed IT teams across regions and time zones, including hiring and developing technical leads.• Experience managing IT budgets, third-party vendors, and outsourced/managed services.• Working knowledge of enterprise systems relevant to Eppinger's stack — Microsoft 365, ERP platforms (Epicor Prophet 21 a plus), and finance/payroll systems (Sage, Spine).• Comfort operating in a manufacturing / precision-engineering environment, including shop-floor support realities.• Excellent stakeholder-management and communication skills across cultures and seniority levels.Nice to have• Prior work bridging European and North American operations.Strong network of Technology 3rd party service providers (software and hardware) that can help us better support our sites in Denkendorf (DE), Indiana (US), Rochester (US) and Coimbatore (IN)• German language ability.First-year success looks like• A single, SLA-driven support model live across all three regions with a materially reduced ticket backlog.• The India hub operational, led by an Enterprise Tech Lead, with follow-the-sun coverage in place.• A defined target architecture and active migration off unprotected on-premises infrastructure.• A tested DR/BCP and backup framework in place.• A credible, monitored path to NIS2 compliance.Additional InformationReports to: CFO & Chief of Staff (CoS)Employment Type: Full-timeCompensation: $220,000–$250,000 base salary, plus eligibility for a performance-based bonusTravel: Regular travel across Germany, the United States, and India is requiredLeadership Scope: Manage direct reports in India and lead the establishment and development of Eppinger’s Enterprise Core Team in India