Product Development​/R&D Director

Position: New Product Development / R&D Director
Lead New Product Management for mechanical and electro-mechanical hardware, overseeing product life cycles from design through manufacturing and integrating IoT capabilities. Drive hands-on mechanical expertise while evolving toward data-driven, connected platforms. Build and lead IoT product teams, integrating embedded systems, firmware, and cloud technologies. Serve as the bridge between Engineering, Software, Operations, Supply Chain, and Leadership, ensuring products meet business, quality, and customer needs.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES & TASKS

Leadership

* Lead, mentor, and develop the Engineering department, covering mechanical hardware PMs, embedded/firmware PMs, software PMs, and cross‑functional IoT product owners.

Product Development

* Establish product processes, frameworks, and playbooks across mechanical engineering, manufacturing, NPI, and software development life cycles (SDLC).

* Allocate resources, set departmental priorities, and manage performance across hardware‑first and software‑enabled product portfolios.

* Define and maintain integrated mechanical hardware and IoT software roadmaps across devices, firmware, mobile apps, cloud services, analytics, and future platform capabilities.

* Oversee and sustain all launcher development, incorporating new mechanical designs, cost reductions, manufacturing simplification, and reliability improvements, alongside digital feature enhancements.

* Balance mechanical feasibility, tolerance constraints, tooling realities, operational scalability, and IoT architecture considerations in prioritization decisions.

* Serve as the senior leader for mechanical manufacturing execution within NPI.

* Lead EVT/DVT/PVT phases including DFM/DFA/DFT, tolerance analysis, tooling strategies, test readiness, pilot builds, FAI approvals, and production ramp planning.

* Ensure all designs are production ready with proper testing validation and documentation.

* Ownership of Design Engineering, Sustaining Engineering, and manufacturing Engineering.

* Ensure IoT and software dependencies (firmware, connectivity, provisioning, UI/UX) are aligned to mechanical builds and factory milestones.

* Ownership of all product technical specifications and adherence to specification.

* Lead the formation and maturation of an IoT ecosystem, covering embedded firmware, connectivity, cloud infrastructure, device management, and data pipelines.

Manufacturing & Operations Partnership

* Collaborate closely with Operations to integrate software and IoT requirements into mechanical production processes (firmware flashing, device provisioning, calibration, configuration control).

* Own Design Quality across mechanical, electrical, and software.