Coherent

Senior Product Manager

Coherent • $130K — $155K *
Fremont, CA 94536In-Person
Telecommunications & Hardware
8 - 10 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related technical discipline; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
  • Eight or more years of relevant experience in optical communications or product management.
  • Five or more years in product-line management or equivalent commercial product ownership.
  • Strong understanding of high-speed optical transceivers and related technologies.
  • Familiarity with hyperscale datacenter and networking vendor ecosystems.
  • Experience in managing product life cycles, developing business cases, and forecasting.
  • Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and maintain product strategy and roadmap in line with Business Unit priorities.
  • Manage product-line revenue, bookings, and cost performance metrics.
  • Coordinate corrective actions based on monthly financial and shipment results analysis.
  • Identify and manage design-win opportunities with Sales teams and customers.
  • Translate market requirements into commercially viable product specifications.
  • Own product lifecycle from concept through end of life, including monitoring milestones.
  • Collaborate cross-functionally to support successful product launches and customer engagement plans.

Benefits

  • Health, dental, and vision insurance.
  • 401(k) plan with company match.
  • Paid time off and holidays.
  • Continuing education and development opportunities.
Full Job Description
Job Description

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

Product Strategy and Financial Performance
  • Develop and maintain the strategy and roadmap for assigned products, aligned with broader Business Unit priorities.
  • Manage product-line revenue, bookings, backlog, forecast, pricing, gross margin, and cost performance.
  • Review monthly financial and shipment results, identify gaps, and coordinate corrective actions with Sales, Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain.
  • Provide product-level market, volume, pricing, cost, and investment assumptions for annual budgeting and long-range planning.
  • Monitor and maximize revenue / gross margins
  • Identify and coordinate cost-reduction and margin-improvement initiatives.
  • Develop business cases for new products, R&D programs, and capital investments in partnership with Finance, R&D, and Operations.
  • Track approved product investments against business-case assumptions and communicate material risks or variances.
  • Monitor customer, schedule, cost, quality, and financial performance for assigned products and coordinate corrective actions.
  • Provide forward-looking product and market input to support growth, market-share, and profitability objectives.


Customer Engagement and Design Wins
  • Partner with Sales to identify, qualify, and prioritize design-win opportunities.
  • Develop customer engagement plans for priority opportunities and coordinate cross-functional execution.
  • Build and maintain strong business and technical relationships with relevant customer teams.
  • Translate customer and market requirements into manufacturable, commercially viable product requirements.
  • Partner with Product Development and Program Management to assess feasibility, cost, schedule, and manufacturability and support on-time, on-budget execution.


Customer and Sales Support
  • Partner with Sales to support bookings, revenue growth, and customer adoption for assigned products.
  • Translate customer requirements into profitable product offerings aligned with product-line and Business Unit strategy.
  • Work with Sales, Marketing, R&D, and Operations on competitive proposals, including specifications, schedules, and pricing.
  • Document product requirements and communicate them clearly to development and operations teams.
  • Support customer proposals, product positioning, demonstrations, prototypes, and technical and commercial responses.
  • Coordinate with Engineering and Applications teams to provide timely customer technical support and resolve product-related issues.
  • Conduct win/loss analysis and incorporate findings into product and customer strategies.


Product Life Cycle Management
  • Own product requirements and lifecycle plans for assigned products, from concept through end of life.
  • Prepare product business cases and support approval of new development projects.
  • Monitor schedule, cost, technical performance, quality, and product-readiness milestones with Product Development and Program Management.
  • Identify program risks and coordinate mitigation plans, escalating material issues when necessary.
  • Support the effective transition of new products and processes into volume production.
  • Ensure product qualification, reliability, and compliance information is current and available to support customer opportunities.


Operations Support
  • Develop the unconstrained demand forecast with Sales and customers and participate in revenue planning and S&OP.
  • Monitor order fulfillment, inventory, capacity, lead time, on-time delivery, quality, cost, and margin performance.
  • Coordinate product-specific supply and execution issues with Operations and Supply Chain; recommend customer priorities during constraints for leadership approval.
  • Benchmark product costs and work with Operations, NPI, Supply Chain, and contract manufacturers to achieve cost and margin targets.
  • Support supplier and contract-manufacturer evaluations and provide product and business input to sourcing decisions and negotiations.
  • Work with internal component suppliers to maintain competitive cost, performance, quality, and supply.
  • Work with Operations and Finance to develop product-level inputs for capacity-expansion business cases.
  • Track approved product-related capital investments against business-case milestones and assumptions.


Market Analysis and Sales Enablement
  • Monitor customer requirements, market trends, industry roadmaps, and competitive developments.
  • Develop product strategy and roadmap recommendations based on market and customer analysis.
  • Develop product positioning, value propositions, launch collateral, customer presentations, and sales-training materials.

Education & Experience
  • Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related technical discipline required; MBA or advanced engineering degree preferred.
  • Eight or more years of relevant experience in optical communications, high-speed networking, product management, engineering, or a related field.
  • Five or more years of direct product management, product-line management, or equivalent commercial product ownership experience preferred.
  • Strong understanding of high-speed optical transceivers and related technologies.
  • Familiarity with hyperscale datacenter, networking equipment, switch, and ASIC vendor ecosystems.
  • Experience managing products through the lifecycle and developing requirements, business cases, forecasts, pricing recommendations, and roadmaps.
  • Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams and deliver measurable business results without direct organizational authority.

Skills
  • Strong understanding of product-line financials, including revenue, pricing, product cost, gross margin, forecast, and investment business cases.
  • Ability to translate customer and market requirements into clear product requirements and commercially viable plans.
  • Strong analytical, problem-solving, and data-driven decision-making skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and complex issues.
  • Ability to influence global, cross-functional teams and work effectively with customers in a multicultural environment.
  • Strong customer-management, communication, negotiation, and presentation skills, with high standards of integrity, accountability, and judgment.


Working Conditions
  • Working conditions typical of a climate controlled and professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, copiers, filing cabinets, etc.

Physical Requirements
  • The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms

Safety Requirements

All employees are required to follow the site EHS procedures and Coherent Corp. Corporate EHS standards.

Quality and Environmental Responsibilities

Depending on location, this position may be responsible for the execution and maintenance of the ISO 9000, 9001, 14001 and/or other applicable standards that may apply to the relevant roles and responsibilities within the Quality Management System and Environmental Management System.

About Coherent

Coherent, Inc. is a global leader in providing laser-based solutions to a broad range of commercial and scientific research customers. The company designs, manufactures, and markets lasers, laser-based systems, precision optics, and related accessories for a diverse group of customers. Coherent's markets include scientific research, OEM components and instrumentation, microelectronics, materials processing, and life sciences. The company's products are used in a wide range of applications. Coherent was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Learn more about Coherent
Size
5,085 employees
Market Cap
$4.6 billion
Industry
Manufacturing & Automotive
Net Income
-$419.7 million
Founded
1966
5 Year Trend
+27.8%
Revenue
$1.2 billion
NASDAQ
COHR
* Ladders Estimates

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