Product Design Engineering Program Manager (Cupertino, CA) - The Planet Group

Job Summary:
The PD Engineering Program Manager is responsible for the technical management of engineering development projects within the company's Product Design organization. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of enabling large cross-functional teams to deliver complex mechanically integrated consumer electronic systems quickly and with high quality. They will understand the who, what and how of hardware development, create and manage the program plan, and successfully execute it while balancing several competing objectives and aggressive deliverable timelines.

Qualifications:

• Prior experience (ideally 2-5+ years) leading program management or mechanical engineering design of rapid development products comprising multiple materials of high aesthetic quality.
• Strong technical background with knowledge of manufacturing processes and mechanical engineering fundamentals; prior experience with metal stamping, forging, machining (CNC), die casting, plastic injection and compression molding, metal injection molding (MIM) is highly desirable
• Resilience and flexibility when faced with uncertainty and changes in direction
• Self motivated with strong critical thinking capabilities
• Insane attention to detail and ability to effectively manage complexity
• Excellent communication, organization and leadership skills with ability to inspire team members; ability to filter and distill relevant information for the right audience
• Experience collaborating across disparate cross functional teams spanning Mechanical Engineering and Design, Systems Engineering, Reliability, Operations, and Marketing

Responsibilities:

• Support product definition and drive closure of architecture and technical opens in early stages of a project
• Establish and manage program feature baseline, scheduling, critical paths, and technology risk areas for execution through final delivery of the product
• Identify and highlight technical risk areas and mitigation strategies in partnership with impacted teams
• Understand technical issues and drive them to closure by bringing together key stakeholders for decision making
• Offer multiple levels of status across a wide spectrum of individual contributors to executive management
• Enable the development effort by creating and monitoring an efficient, streamlined process
• Drive drawing releases and tooling kickoff with PD Engineering team and the vendors to meet aggressive schedules
• Plan and execute prototype builds, directing factory operations and cross functional teams
• Lead cross-functional communication between project teams and external vendors.

Education
BS ME degree required, MS or MBA desired