Product Manager - CAD Engineering Lead

Product Manager - Cad Engineering Lead

The Cad Engineering Lead owns the digital backbone of how we design, develop, and deliver product. From the engineer's first sketch in CAD through release into manufacturing and service, this role is responsible for the platforms, data, and processes that make product development fast, reliable, and scalable. It is a deliberate evolution beyond traditional CAD administration—less about keeping the lights on, and more about shaping how engineering works at scale.

This is a strategic, business-aligned position with an operational role. The person in this seat will be expected to think in terms of roadmaps, business cases, and measurable outcomes, while remaining close enough to the technology to make confident architectural decisions. They will partner across Engineering, IT, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing to ensure our engineering systems are a competitive advantage rather than a constraint on growth.

Own the Engineering Systems Landscape

You will be accountable for the architecture, configuration, performance, and roadmap of our CAD and PDM/PLM platforms—making sure they are stable on their own and integrated cleanly into the broader ecosystem.

• Own the architecture, configuration, and performance of CAD and PDM/PLM platforms
• Ensure seamless integration across CAD, PLM, ERP, and manufacturing systems
• Define a system roadmap aligned to product development and supply chain strategy

Establish Governance and Standards

Engineering at scale depends on consistency, and consistency depends on standards. You will define and enforce the standards that allow engineers across geographies to work as one team.

• Establish and enforce CAD modeling standards
• Define data structures, naming conventions, and BOM governance
• Own release and change management processes
• Drive consistency across global engineering teams

Protect the Digital Thread

Product data has to flow accurately from design into manufacturing and on into service—without distortion, duplication, or loss of context. You will own that flow end to end.

• Ensure product data flows accurately from design → manufacturing → service
• Own product data quality, version control, and traceability
• Eliminate duplication, rework, and downstream errors

Drive Engineering Productivity

Engineers should spend their time engineering, not fighting tools. You will improve productivity through targeted automation and performance tuning, and serve as the escalation point when complex issues block the team.

• Deliver automation through scripts, templates, and design reuse
• Optimize performance for large assemblies and overall system speed
• Define and deliver a training strategy for engineers and designers
• Act as escalation point for complex technical and system issues

Lead Transformation and Continuous Improvement

This role is expected to lead, not just maintain. The bar is real, measurable productivity gains—not technology adoption for its own sake.

• Lead PLM modernization and upgrade initiatives
• Drive cloud CAD / SaaS adoption
• Advance the move to model-based engineering (MBE)
• Evaluate emerging engineering technologies (simulation, digital twins, MBE)
• Drive adoption of AI-accelerated CAD — generative and topology-optimized design, AI-assisted part search and design reuse, automated simulation setup, and intelligent validation — to compress design cycles, reduce duplicate parts, and scale engineering expertise
• Identify and deliver measurable productivity gains

Manage Vendors and Partners

Our engineering systems run on a network of external relationships, and you will own them—holding partners accountable to SLAs and continuously looking for ways to optimize cost without compromising capability.

• Manage external partners for CAD/PLM support, upgrades, and implementations
• Own strategic vendor relationships (Dassault, PTC, Siemens, Autodesk, etc.)
• Ensure SLA performance and cost optimization

Partner Across the Business

Engineering systems do not exist in isolation. A central part of the job is translating business needs into system capabilities—and translating system constraints back into business-friendly language.

• Partner with engineering leadership on design…