Description

Head of Product Management - DC Severe-Duty Conventional

Class 8 Severe-Duty Conventional Truck.

The Mission

Reporting to the President of Autocar, the mission of the Head of Product Management - DC Severe-Duty Conventional is to make the Autocar DC-64 Class 8 severe duty conventional truck the undisputed market leader in every severe vocation we choose to serve.

This position serves as the business owner and steward of the umbrella Autocar DC product strategy and is accountable for defining vocation strategies, product requirements, customer value models, competitive differentiation, and a multigenerational product roadmap required to drive profitable growth and sustainable competitive advantage. The role owns what problems should be solved, for whom, why they matter, and the value they must create; Engineering owns how those solutions are designed and delivered.

The role translates customer applications, field data, competitive intelligence, and lifecycle economics into prioritized product investments and requirements, while aligning Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Sales, Marketing, Service, and body-builder partners around a common strategy and force-ranked priorities. Acting as the voice of the application, grounded in direct customer insight, the position ensures product decisions are driven by customer value, market opportunity, competitive differentiation, and economic return to create the industry's most productive, reliable, serviceable, and application-optimized severe-duty truck platform.

The successful candidate will become one of the industry's foremost experts on severe-duty vocational applications and the economics that drive customer success. They will develop a deep understanding of how customers use vocational trucks in the real world, what drives productivity and uptime, what causes downtime and operational inefficiencies, and where Autocar can create measurable customer value. Through that expertise, they will help build proprietary application knowledge, application standards, specification methodologies, decision tools, and product strategies that create durable competitive advantage for Autocar.

The mission is simple: make the Autocar DC the best tool for the job and the clearly superior economic and operational choice for every vocation we serve.

What You Will Own

Own the Voice of the Application

Spend substantial time where trucks work - riding routes, visiting jobsites, observing loading and unloading, sitting with drivers, working with technicians, and collaborating with body companies. Build a structured, vocation-specific application knowledge base covering duty cycle, operating environment and economic drivers, replacing opinion with application data.

Be customer obsessed without being customer dictated. Use customer requests and field observations as evidence to identify underlying application problems and translate validated needs into scalable product requirements and priorities.

Serve as the Authority on Each DC Vocation

Establish distinct product strategies for each vocation rather than treating the DC as one truck with different bodies. For every target vocation - concrete/mixer, dump/construction, refuse/roll-off, and logging/severe haul - develop a requirements document, competitive benchmark, and economic value proposition. Align Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Sales, Marketing, Service, and Application Engineering around vocation-specific product strategies and priorities.

Own Vocation Value Proposition

Act as the steward of the DC's vocation-specific value propositions, ensuring they are grounded in measurable product advantages, application data, customer economics, and competitive benchmarking. Align product requirements, roadmap priorities, product investments, and cross-functional execution to continuously strengthen Autocar's competitive advantage in each target vocation. Promote clarity, understanding, and consistent application across cross-functional teams.

Build the DC Application Intelligence Database

Create and own a proprietary database of actual operating information from customer trucks - miles, hours, PTO and idle time, payload, fuel, fault codes, component failures, maintenance and repair events, downtime, and driver/technician observations. Use this intelligence to determine which specifications produce the best lifecycle economics for each application and build proprietary Autocar knowledge that drives better product decisions and competitive advantage.

Own Competitive Product Intelligence

Maintain detailed, application-level benchmarking against Mack, Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, Western Star, International, Volvo and other vocational competitors. Go beyond brochures - acquire, drive and measure competitor trucks where justified. Identify where Autocar is objectively better, where it is worse, and translate competitive gaps into product priorities and actions.

Own Product Requirements

Be the business owner of DC product requirements - defining what problem must be solved, for which customer, vocation or application, why it matters, and what performance is required, while Engineering determines how to engineer the solution. Every meaningful requirement must trace: customer/vocation 12 use case 12 problem 12 evidence 12 required performance 12 customer value 12 competitive benchmark 12 priority.

Own the DC Multigenerational Product Roadmap

Maintain a rolling 3-to-5-year product roadmap, prioritizing investments based on customer value, market opportunity, competitive differentiation, economic return, complexity, risk, and capital requirements. Recommend and prioritize investments toward the product improvements and technologies that create the greatest competitive advantage - and say no to features that lack sufficient customer or economic value.

Make 22Always Up23 Quantifiable

Translate the 22Always Up23 promise into measurable product requirements and customer economics across reliability, repairability, and availability. Demonstrate how improved uptime enables an Autocar to deliver more productive hours and greater lifecycle value.

Own Product Economics and Customer ROIC

Quantify the customer value of product decisions - including productivity, avoided downtime, maintenance, fuel, labor, useful life, residual value, and safety - against incremental acquisition cost. Partner with Finance and Sales to develop credible TCO, payback and ROIC tools that demonstrate that the cheapest truck to purchase is not the lowest-cost truck to own.

Own the Product Tools

Turn application intelligence into scalable tools, including Customer Application, Intelligent Spec19ing, TCO/ROIC, Competitive Comparison, Body Integration, and Application Library tools. Enable mass customization through proprietary application knowledge, proven engineering rules, and reusable configurations rather than manual reinvention.

Own and continuously improve the customer specification methodology to ensure applications are translated into optimized configurations and repeatable engineering solutions.

Drive Body Integration as a Competitive Advantage

Identify and build strategic relationships with key body and equipment manufacturers, establishing standard integration requirements, engineering interfaces, and application best practices. Ensure chassis, body, controls, data, and service function as one integrated vocational tool, making body integration a measurable Autocar competitive advantage.

Connect Customer, Sales and Engineering & Close the Loop

Serve as the connective tissue between Customer, Sales, Product, Engineering, Body Builders, Operations, Quality and Service, aligning cross-functional priorities around the umbrella DC Class 8 severe-duty strategy. Ensure product decisions are driven by customer evidence, application data, market opportunity, competitive differentiation, and economic value rather than isolated requests or internal assumptions.

Establish a closed-loop product development system: field observation 12 data 12 root cause 12 requirement 12 engineering 12 validation 12 production 12 field measurement. Continuously mine warranty, reliability, service and installed base information to identify product improvements, eliminate recurring issues and strengthen Autocar9s competitive position.

Who You Are

Required
30+ years in heavy-duty commercial vehicles, vocational equipment, off-highway equipment or closely related industrial equipment.
Deep understanding of Class 8 vocational applications.
Experience working with fleets, drivers, technicians and body/equipment manufacturers
Strong quantitative capability, including experience with lifecycle economics, TCO, ROIC, customer value analysis, and data-driven business case development.
Demonstrated ability to translate field / application requirements into engineered products.
Strong understanding of chassis, powertrain, axle, suspension, braking, electrical and body integration.
Ability to interpret telematics, warranty, reliability and field-performance data.
Technically strong enough to challenge Engineering, and commercially strong enough to challenge Sales, intelligently.
Willingness to spend substantial time with customers and trucks in actual operating environments.
Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and external partners around a common product strategy and delivering measurable business results.
Willing to relocate to our flagship facility in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham is one of the Southeast9s most dynamic and affordable cities, recognized nationally as a growing business hub and an attractive destination for professionals. The area offers a lower cost of living than many major metropolitan markets, a thriving culinary and entertainment scene, and convenient access to lakes, parks, and weekend destinations throughout the region. Our Autocar facility is located just 20 minutes from downtown Birmingham, providing easy access to the city9s amenities while maintaining a convenient commute.

Strongly Preferred
Experience across several severe-duty vocations: refuse, concrete mixers, dump, heavy construction, roll-off, logging or severe haul.
Background from a truck OEM, major body/equipment manufacturer, large, sophisticated fleet, vocational engineering organization or heavy-equipment OEM.

Personal Characteristics

This role requires someone who is:
Application obsessed. Wants to understand exactly how the customer9s operation works, what drives productivity and uptime, and where Autocar can create measurable economic value.
Data driven. Bases decisions on customer evidence, field data, and economic analysis, continually challenging assumptions and driving improvement.
Technically credible. Team members and business partners respect the person9s questions and judgment.
Commercially sophisticated. Understands that engineering only matters if it creates customer and Autocar economic value.
Field oriented. Spends the right amount of time at landfills, quarries, concrete operations, logging sites or maintenance shops to gain customer and application insight.
Skeptical. Tests assumptions against actual customer evidence.
Competitive. Wants to know exactly why Autocar wins or loses.
Decisive and influential. Aligns teams and business partners around a common strategy and force-ranks priorities.
Systems oriented. Converts tribal knowledge into repeatable tools, rules and data.
Customer obsessed without being customer dictated. Uses customer requests as evidence to identify underlying application problems and scalable product opportunities.

What You9ll Get

• Competitive compensation that recognizes your skills, experience, and impact.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life and AD&D insurance, and short-term and long-term disability to support your well-being.
• 401(k) with a company match to help you invest in your future.
• Paid time off (PTO) and company holidays to rest, recharge, and maintain work-life balance.
• A high-impact role with real ownership.

Job Duties Disclaimer:
The duties and responsibilities outlined here are representative but not exhaustive of the tasks that the employee may be required to perform. Management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other tasks as necessary to meet business needs.