Position: Product Development Manager, Technical & Customer Support Services
Location: Detroit, MI or Windsor, ON
Vacancy: This posting is for an existing vacancy
The Opportunity: What You'll Lead
As the Product Development Manager, you will lead AMTB's Product Development Technical and Customer Support Services, ensuring disciplined technical execution and consistent customer support from initial concept through production and beyond.
You will be responsible for establishing priorities, allocating resources, setting technical standards, developing engineering talent, and ensuring alignment across our commercial, engineering, manufacturing, quality, and operational teams. Your key responsibilities will include:
Technical and Engineering Leadership
• Establish the technical direction, engineering standards, and review expectations for feasibility assessments, blank design, laser-welded blank development, application engineering, validation, and production launch support.
• Provide technical leadership and governance on complex engineering challenges involving blank architecture, material grades and thicknesses, weld design, dimensional requirements, manufacturability, and product performance.
• Ensure engineering deliverables are technically sound, complete, traceable, and aligned with customer requirements and AMTB manufacturing capabilities.
• Champion consistent engineering practices, technical standards, and knowledge-sharing across the organization.
Program Execution and Customer Support
• Prioritize and allocate Product Development resources across RFQs, awarded programs, prototypes, qualifications, production launches, and customer issue resolution.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for OEM and Tier 1 customer concerns, providing timely direction and effective resolution of complex technical issues.
• Lead cross-functional recovery plans addressing program timing, quality, design, validation, and manufacturing risks.
• Ensure customer commitments are realistic, supported by technical evidence, and aligned with internal capabilities and business objectives.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with customer engineering organizations and key industry stakeholders.
People Leadership and Organizational Development
• Lead, coach, mentor, and develop engineering professionals, establishing clear objectives, ownership, and performance expectations.
• Build a high-performing team culture that encourages accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
• Identify capability gaps and establish succession planning, cross-training, and knowledge-transfer strategies to strengthen organizational resilience.
• Develop team members' technical and leadership capabilities while fostering an environment where individuals are empowered to contribute and grow.
• Balance immediate customer and program requirements with the longer-term development of team capabilities and organizational effectiveness.
Innovation and Continuous Improvement
• Champion innovation, digitalization, and AI-enabled engineering workflows to improve efficiency and engineering effectiveness.
• Drive the development of reusable design standards, technical playbooks, and lessons learned to improve consistency and reduce repetitive problem-solving.
• Identify opportunities to reduce engineering cycle times, rework, launch risks, and recurring technical issues.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, challenging existing practices and finding better ways to deliver value to our customers.
What You Bring to the Team
We are looking for a technically strong, collaborative, and results-oriented leader who can balance strategic thinking with hands-on problem-solving. The ideal candidate will bring:
Education and Experience
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related technical discipline. An advanced degree is considered an asset.
• 10+ years of relevant automotive engineering or manufacturing experience, including demonstrated technical leadership and customer-facing responsibilities.
• Experience in automotive body-in-white structures, advanced high-strength steels, press-hardened steels, laser-welded blanks, stamping, joining technologies, or related automotive applications.
• Proven experience leading and developing technical teams, managing competing priorities, and driving cross-functional initiatives.
• Experience working directly with OEMs and/or Tier 1 automotive customers is strongly preferred.
Technical and Leadership Capabilities
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to evaluate complex engineering challenges and make sound decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and develop engineering talent.
• Excellent customer communication and relationship-management skills, including the ability to manage senior-level technical escalations.
• Strong program management, prioritization, and risk-management capabilities.
• A structured and analytical approach to problem-solving and decision-making.
• Ability to influence and collaborate across multiple functions and organizational levels.
• A continuous improvement mindset with an interest in leveraging technology, digitalization, and AI to advance engineering practices.
• Willingness and ability to travel to customer, plant, supplier, and technical locations as business needs require.
Our Purpose: Driving a Safer and Greener Tomorrow
At AMTB, our purpose is more than a statement. It guides how we work, how we treat one another, and the impact we strive to make every day.
Our Values:
• Safety in Everything We Do
• We Operate With Respect
• We Do What We Say We Will Do
• We Win Together, We Lose Together
• We Challenge Ourselves and Each Other
• We Find a Better Way
If you're ready to lead a talented team, influence the future of automotive engineering, and make a lasting impact on our customers and organization, we'd love to hear from you.
Come innovate, lead, and inspire with us!
Discover more about us:
Website: https://northamerica.arcelormittal.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AMTBNA
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com
Compensation and Benefits
• Salary Range: $160,000 - $170,000 annually
• Variable Bonus Potential
• We provide a competitive extended benefits package that supports employee well-being and enhances the overall employee experience.
