Director of Engineering and Product Development

Our client is an innovative, privately held consumer products company with a global customer base and a strong track record of bringing differentiated products to market. The company is entering an exciting stage of growth, with an expanding pipeline of new products and opportunities to enter additional consumer categories.

To support that growth, the organization is seeking a Director of Engineering & Product Development to lead the technical development of products from early-stage concept through commercialization and ongoing production.

This is a highly visible leadership role with significant influence over the company's product roadmap. The successful candidate will combine strong engineering judgment, hands-on product development experience, manufacturing expertise, and executive-level communication to help turn ideas into commercially successful products.

This is an opportunity for an experienced product development leader to have a meaningful impact in an entrepreneurial environment where decisions can move quickly and individual contributions are highly visible.

Reporting directly to the company's senior leadership team, the Director will own the engineering and product development process across the product lifecycle - from initial concept and prototyping through design for manufacturing, tooling, validation, production launch, and ongoing product improvement.

The role will serve as the bridge between product vision, engineering execution, and manufacturing
, ensuring that products meet customer needs while remaining technically sound, cost-effective, reliable, and scalable for production.

• Lead the full lifecycle of consumer product development, from ideation and concept development through prototyping, design for manufacturing, tooling, validation, production launch, and ongoing improvement.
• Translate product concepts and business objectives into clear technical requirements, development plans, and execution priorities.
• Partner closely with senior leadership to shape the product roadmap and determine technical feasibility, development priorities, and resource requirements.
• Maintain visibility across the product development portfolio, identifying risks and opportunities and ensuring projects remain aligned with business objectives.

• Provide technical direction across mechanical, electrical, firmware, product design, and manufacturing disciplines.
• Establish product requirements and make informed engineering trade-offs related to performance, reliability, cost, manufacturability, and time to market.
• Lead design reviews, risk assessments, validation activities, and other technical decision-making throughout the development process.
• Bring a practical, hands-on approach to resolving complex product and engineering challenges.
• Serve as a key technical partner to overseas manufacturing partners and engineering resources.
• Ensure alignment on product specifications, quality expectations, development schedules, tooling, costs, and production requirements.
• Support production readiness and work closely with Operations to resolve quality, yield, reliability, and other manufacturing issues.
• Help expand and strengthen the company's global manufacturing capabilities, including opportunities to diversify its manufacturing footprint.

• Lead, mentor, and develop a multidisciplinary engineering and product development team.
• Establish clear goals, accountability, development processes, and performance expectations.
• Build and continuously improve product development processes, documentation, design standards, and phase-gate disciplines appropriate for a fast-moving consumer products environment.
• Evaluate team structure, resources,…