Product Engineering Manager

THE WITTERN GROUP, Inc.

$110K — $130K *
Clive, IA 50325In-Person
Manufacturing & Automotive
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Mechanical/Electrical/Manufacturing Engineering or related field.
  • 10 years of Engineering experience, with 5 years in a leadership role.
  • Proven track record in building and leading multidisciplinary product engineering teams.
  • Expertise in bringing physical products from concept to market, including industrialization and support.
  • Familiarity with embedded systems, electrical systems, and connected-device architecture.
  • Strong knowledge of product development processes like APQP, design controls, and continuous improvement.
  • Excellent communication skills across executive, technical, customer, and cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

  • Build and mentor a high-performing product engineering team.
  • Establish team structures, resource allocation, and budgets aligned with business goals.
  • Foster a culture of innovation and accountability within the engineering team.
  • Collaborate across functions to prioritize and deliver successful product outcomes.
  • Translate customer requirements into actionable engineering plans alongside Product Owners.
  • Lead product development from concept through to post-launch support.
  • Drive continuous improvement efforts in product quality and lifecycle performance.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to lead a multidisciplinary engineering team.
  • Engagement in the entire product lifecycle from development to commercialization.
  • Fostering a culture focused on innovation and technical excellence.
  • Involvement in cross-functional collaboration for product success.
  • Focus on sustainability and long-term product support.
Full Job Description
Description

Engineering Organization and Team Development
• Build, lead, mentor, and retain a high-performing multidisciplinary product engineering team responsible for new product development, product sustainment, and technical excellence.
• Establish team structure, capacity plans, resource allocation, budgets, and development paths that support product roadmaps, business objectives, and long-term organizational growth.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, continuous improvement, customer-focused problem-solving, and disciplined product development while developing future technical leaders.
• Lead through the team by setting priorities, removing barriers, reviewing outcomes, and driving cross-functional collaboration with Product Management, Manufacturing, Quality, Customer Support, Sales, Marketing, and Software Development to deliver successful product outcomes.
New Product Development and Commercialization
• Partner with Product Owners to translate product vision, customer requirements, and roadmap priorities into engineering plans, technical solutions, and actionable development activities.
• Lead the execution of product development from concept through design, prototyping, validation, manufacturing readiness, launch, and post-launch support while ensuring alignment to product objectives and business outcomes.
• Drive disciplined engineering practices including APQP, design reviews, verification and validation, risk management, change control, documentation, and quality standards to deliver reliable and manufacturable products.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, and Software Development teams to ensure products are successfully commercialized, effectively supported, and continuously improved throughout their lifecycle.
Product Sustainment and Continuous Improvement
• Build the team and operating model responsible for the long-term performance and sustainability of released products.
• Improve product quality, reliability, serviceability, manufacturability, availability, compliance, cost, and margin throughout the product lifecycle.
• Use customer and product owner feedback, warranty data, field service information, manufacturing performance, support trends, and product telemetry to identify and prioritize improvements.
• Lead root-cause problem solving, corrective action, value engineering, component lifecycle planning, obsolescence management, and technical debt reduction.
• Ensure existing products remain supportable, competitive, profitable, and aligned with changing customer and regulatory requirements.
Success Measures
• Engineering portfolio balance and delivery against committed priorities.
• New product development milestones, APQP gate completion, launch readiness, and time to market.
• Post-launch performance, product adoption, customer outcomes, and revenue or margin contribution.
• Quality, reliability, warranty, field issues, serviceability, and corrective-action trends.
• Hardware-software integration quality, release coordination, system validation, and connected-product performance.
• Team capability, leadership development, retention, succession readiness, and employee engagement.
Knowledge, Skills, and Leadership Capabilities
• Proven leadership of multidisciplinary product engineering teams in a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience building teams and leaders that deliver through others.
• Experience bringing physical products from concept through industrialization, manufacturing, launch, and lifecycle support.
• Working knowledge of embedded controller devices, firmware, electrical systems, and connected-device architecture.
• Practical knowledge of sheet metal product development, design for manufacturability, tooling, fabrication, assembly, and production readiness.
• Experience with APQP or similar product development process, verification and validation, design controls, risk management, root-cause analysis, change control, and continuous improvement.
• Clear executive, technical, customer, and cross-functional communication skills.
Education and Experience
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• 10 years in Engineering, and 5 years of Engineering leadership experience in the development and manufacture of integrated consumer products.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams.

Requirements
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• 10 years in Engineering, and 5 years of Engineering leadership experience in the development and manufacture of integrated consumer products.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams.

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