In his role at Røde, Nick will oversee all aspects of engineering for the New Product Group, leveraging his extensive expertise in consumer audio technology, both hardware and software to lead Røde’s ongoing commitment to delivering world-class creative solutions. "His leadership will be instrumental in driving the development of Røde’s future product roadmap, furthering our mission to create groundbreaking tools for creators across the globe," the company states in the appointment announcement.
An experienced audio product development lead, specializing in AI and DSP algorithms, Nick Engel originally studied and did research at the Australian National University from where he joined Lake Technology. The audio digital signal processing company was later acquired by Dolby Laboratories and became the Dolby Australia site. There he led a Dolby owned startup group that developed and launched a suite of audio post-processing technology for consumer devices, evolving into Dolby Mobile. He worked on the team that aligned and evolved Dolby's approach to writing reference code and working with IC partners, catalyzed by the acquisitions of Lake Technology and Coding Technologies.
During his time at Dolby, already in San Francisco, Nick Engel worked on Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Audio Processing technologies, being part of the Dolby Atmos speaker system development effort, the Dolby Atmos headphone and speaker rendering technology, and the Dolby Atmos Music project, adopted by Apple, TIDAL, and Amazon Music. He also worked in the foundation of Dolby.io, developing the media APIs for cloud-based media processing, analysis, encoding and transcoding services. Later at Apple, Nick led the Audio HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) software team at Apple, in Cupertino.
Commenting on the appointment, Røde CEO Damien Wilson said, "We are incredibly excited to welcome Nick Engel to the Røde team. His impressive background in audio engineering and his experience working with some of the world’s most iconic technology brands make him the perfect fit for our team. Nick’s expertise will be crucial as we push the boundaries of what’s possible creative technology and continue to create exceptional products for the next generation of creators."
"I was drawn to Røde because Røde is a global leader in its field," says Nick Engel. "I’ve always been able to rely on Røde products both professionally and in my creative personal life, so it’s an honor to join the company at such an exciting time. Røde’s commitment to excellence in product design and engineering is truly inspiring. I look forward to working alongside the talented team here to build on the company's legacy of delivering industry-leading products that empower creators around the world."
A uniquely Australian-owned and operated company, Røde is part of The Freedman Group, alongside Mackie, APHEX, Event and SoundField. All its products are designed and manufactured at its headquarters in Sydney, Australia. Røde's state-of-the-art facilities house over 500 million dollars in precision machinery and an international team of more than 450 people specializing in electronics engineering, industrial design, technical engineering, robotics, audio and acoustics engineering, metal production, toolmaking, injection-mould technology, logistics, assembly, quality control, finance, marketing, and sales. As well as its Sydney HQ, Røde has offices around the world, including the USA, China and the UK.
Recognized as a leading brand in audio technology for creators, Røde recently announced its first video-oriented product, a production console that combines state-of-the-art video switching, production and recording capabilities with a complete professional audio studio. And Røde is also currently involved in an ambitious product development roadmap to revive Mackie, following the acquisition of the company from Loud.
www.rode.com
