REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor of Science degree in relevant Engineering discipline, or equivalent
• Experience managing others’ work as well as one’s own
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the company
• Excellent organizational skills
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and make decisions under pressure
• Ability to switch focus between task specifics and the overall project outlook and health
• As a technically oriented leader, able to autonomously identify and escalate project risks and issues as the first line of defense against challenges to project cost, schedule, and performance
• Working understanding of product requirements and agency certification process
• Proficiency with project management software, such as Microsoft Project
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint)
• Ability to assemble and monitor project budgets
• Self-starter, internally motivated
• Proactive, inquisitive, problem-solving nature

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ yr experience managing consumer goods product development projects
• Prior development experience with consumer, industrial, or aerospace products
• Sound understanding of financial/accounting fundamentals
• Studies in Project Management and/or a Project Management certification such as PMP
• Inspiring and motivational leader
• Experience working with offshore suppliers, especially Asia
• Familiar with interpreting various forms of engineering documentation
• Proven ability to solve problems creatively

• Project Planning
• Work closely with team members to determine the detailed development scope based on business objectives and detailed product requirements
• Based on established project scope and available resources, document functional work plans and dependencies with input from team members and managers, as appropriate
• Develop and maintain a project schedule that the project team can commit to delivering and the stakeholders can commit to support. Clearly and continuously communicate plan assumptions and risks to stakeholders
• Project Execution
• Single-point accountability for project success; true pivot / center locus for project communication
• Coordinate project team activities to ensure deliverables are on time, at cost, within budget, and meet expected quality and performance targets
• Track project team progress to plan and work with team proactively to identify and implement mitigations
• Coordinate and track relevant activities owned by contract manufacturer(s)
• Anticipate project team deliverables in all phases, and clearly understand the philosophies of the various NPD phases
• Communicate the maturity level and technical risks of the design and solicit additional subject matter expert feedback when needed
• Regularly solicit feedback from project team members, their functional managers, and stakeholders to understand their needs
• Proactively identify and eliminate barriers to the project team’s progress to committed plan
• Continuously identify, assess, and update the project issues and risks, effectively evaluate and prioritize mitigation plans
• Coordinate preparation for all project builds through initial production lot
• Lead project risk management analyses and planning meetings
• Assess, communicate, and align the organization on changes to project scope and schedule as product requirements change
• Serve a functional engineering role on the project core team; as such, complete all or a portion of engineering discipline-specific deliverables on the project.
• Project Financials
• Prepare project expensetooling budgets
• Monitor and track project expenses
• Monitor and track project tooling spend versus budget
• Project ReportingCommunication
• Schedule, create agendas, facilitate, and document regular project meetings
• Initiate on-demand topical discussions with key stakeholders to escalate team needs as barriers to progress emerge
• Clearly and effectively share overall project status, risks, issues, mitigations, and any breaking needs to leadership and executive team as appropriate
• Measure project performance against KPIs (key performance indicators) that roll up to the enterprise balanced scorecard
• Facilitate effective meetings and actively drive effective decision-making
• Prepare and collect documentation from functional team members to satisfy NPD gate requirements
• Responsible for all communication with NPD project contract manufacturer(s), other than that which is within the domain of Supply Chain: price, contract terms, and associated negotiations
• Responsible for all regular communication of project health, status, and needs with executive team. Note: Product requirements, the roadmap, portfolio, and individual product P&L, launch plan and associate communications are the responsibility of the relevant Product Manager
• Miscellaneous
• Some international travel is required, especially to support development builds