Product Lead, Machine Systems

Career Area:

Technology, Digital and Data

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do - but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here - we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live.

Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

About CTCT:

Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies (CTCT) is a joint venture between Caterpillar Inc. and Trimble Inc. This division develops positioning, control and automation products for earthmoving and paving machines in the construction and mining industries, using technologies such as GNSS, IMUs, optical total stations, lasers and sonics. The products are used in a range of applications where the operator of the machine benefits from having accurate horizontal and vertical guidance.

What You Will Do:

As the Product Lead for the Machine Systems group within CTCT, you will be a key member of an empowered and accountable Product Team that has true ownership of their product; sellable, installable, and supportable positioning and controls solutions that increase market penetration and system sales revenue. Your product responsibilities will include Positioning, Control, Commissioning, and integration of software into the heavy and compact construction, paving, and mining industries.

Product Strategy & Vision:

You will be responsible for translating CTCT strategy to product team strategy, distilling product needs from customer needs and requests, and establishing priorities within the Product Team. You will work directly with internal and external customers, suppliers, stakeholders, and multi-discipline engineering teams to develop, maintain, and support compelling, high-quality, innovative systems throughout the complete product lifecycle.

Define a clear, theme-based roadmap (Now/Next/Later) for Positioning and Controls that enables broader system-level capabilities (e.g., Mastless Grading, Entry-Level Compact solutions).

Customer Insight & Definition:

Engage deeply in Voice of the Customer (VOC) activities. Validate problems directly with operators, site managers, and dealers to define requirements based on user needs rather than just technical specs.

The Product Lead acts as the internal steward of the product backlog and the delivery team's value pipeline. Ensuring complete alignment of strategy and execution between Positioning & Controls and Integration & Commissioning teams to deliver product outcomes which meet market/customer needs. You are focused internally on user experience, solution validation, team efficiency, and technical health. Your primary responsibility is to ensure the development team is building the right thing for users, and supporting technical teams in building it right, maximizing the value delivered every single sprint.

Core Responsibilities:

Member Communication and Alignment:

Maintain regular and open communication channels with members to learn key inputs into building the right product, and keeping members informed on velocity, predictability, quality and other important criteria as the team builds the right product.

Continuous Discovery & Solution Validation:

Partner with the Product Manager and UX design teams to conduct user discovery to unearth root pain points.

Work closely with UX/Design to validate solutions via prototypes and mockups before development begins, ensuring features are intuitive for target operators.

Ensure 90% of features entering development have documented validation to demonstrate value and usability.

Backlog Management & Requirements:

Translate high-level themes from the Product Manager into precise User Stories and detailed Acceptance Criteria.

Own the prioritization and refinement of the backlog, ensuring a perpetually "ready" pipeline of 2-3 sprints of defined work.

Integrate supportability requirements to ensure products are easy to upgrade, maintain, and troubleshoot.

Execution & Delivery Management:

Act as the Execution Shield for the engineering team, serving as the sole point of contact for external queries to minimize mid-sprint scope changes.

Partner with Engineering leadership to allocate capacity for technical debt and infrastructure to ensure foundational system health.

Define the "Definition of Done" and formally approve completed features, ensuring they are bug-free and meet the original user-centric intent.

Interoperability & Alignment:

Proactively identify cross-team dependencies and secure commitments from other groups (Systems Engineering, Installation Solutions, Hardware, V&V).

Outcomes Defining Success:

* Backlog Readiness:
Consistently maintain 2 sprints of "ready" work in the backlog, ensuring R&D capacity is fully utilized and "Excessive WIP" is eliminated.

* Delivery Efficiency:
Minimize mid-sprint scope changes and…