Job details

Director of Engineering, New Product Development

Job Description:

At Pentair, you will work along-side passionate problem-solvers who are committed to the future of our planet. We put our purpose into practice, inspiring people to move, improve and enjoy life’s essential resources for happier, healthier lives. From our residential and business water solutions to our sustainable innovations and applications, our 11,250 global employees serve customers in more than 150 countries, working to help improve lives and the environment around the world.

As a Pentair employee, you would enjoy a wide array of benefit options to help keep you and your family healthy and protected, a generous 401(k) and ESPP to help you save for retirement, plus paid time off and wellness programs to encourage a healthy work/life balance.

We have a great opportunity for a creative, curious, solution-minded person to lead our New Product Development Team (NPD) as the director of engineering. You will utilize your strong mix of leadership and technical skills to aggressively lead our engineering team to develop industry leading, cost-effective, high-quality connected, smart products in Apex, NC. Your team consists of innovative and forward-thinking mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, designers, and lab techs. In this role, you will foster a positive team environment that focuses on driving product development to meet critical dates, driving the NPD process, team leadership, and collaboration with other critical company functions – product management, innovation, sales, marketing, finance, quality, supply chain and manufacturing. In addition, this role requires very close collaboration with the IoT/connectivity team to drive the development of Smart, connected pool products. You will report to the Group CTO for Pool.

You will:

Leads the NPD engineering team and drives the new product development process for the pool business.
Develop and implement product development strategies, in alignment with business objectives, to deliver high-quality, cost-effective products that drive sales growth.
Leads new product development to ensure the company expands its position as the industry leader for technology, quality, and cost
Guides new product projects using Pentair’s stage-gate process and champions entrepreneurial thinking to meet critical deadlines.
Collaborates with and guides engineers in North America, Europe, and India to develop world class products
Moves with a sense of urgency to develop products quickly, meet deadlines and drives high quality product development.
Works closely with the operations team to develop product for manual and automated assembly.
Ensure the right engineering resources are applied to projects using resource management tools.
Builds a network of global resources from within Pentair and with outside partners.
Collaborates across functions and regions to ensure that stakeholders have input, buy-in, and support of NPD projects
Coordinates NPD activities based on Product Management requirements
Keeps up to date with consumer, customer, and technology trends to create engineering and product development strategies
Develops and manages a $20M+ budget, optimizing resources to deliver products on time and on budget.
Determines NPD policies and procedures consistent with overall business unit objectives and supervises implementation within the function
Develops and utilizes performance metrics for all areas of direct responsibility to maintain alignment of NPD team performance and business unit goals. Maintain and monitor the global team’s capacity levels and resource needs
Leads talent development activities, succession planning, talent risk mitigation, and performance management for the NPD team
Overall technical responsibility for evaluating competitive products
Collaborates with Patent Attorneys to secure intellectual property rights and maintain intellectual property files

Key Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in mechanical, chemical, or electrical engineering, master’s degree preferred; MBA is a plus.
12+ years of experience with new product introduction stage-gate processes, project management techniques and tools like 6 Sigma, etc.
6+ years of progressive and relevant engineering leadership experience
Strong problem-solving skills with a focus on customer satisfaction
Ability to collaborate and champion change, implement process improvement initiatives, and build a strong cohesive team. Ability to establish and maintain effective and cooperative working relationships and interfaces with cross-functional employees at all levels of the organization, customers, and suppliers.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to present ideas and information to people at all levels of the organization.
Effective leadership and people management skills. Ability to lead, manage, train and coach others and facilitate the transfer of knowledge. Willingness to provide and accept constructive feedback to further continuous improvement and development of people.
Effective organization, project management, and task management skills that include the ability to plan, prioritize, organize, gather facts, and exercise sound judgment in problem solving and decision making. Strong work ethic, task, and detail orientation.
Ability to adapt to changing priorities and deadlines.
Able to travel up to 20% of the time.

Pentair is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Diversity and Inclusion:

With our expanding global presence, cross-cultural insight and competence are essential for our ongoing success. We believe that a diverse workforce contributes different perspectives and creative ideas that enable us to continue to improve every day. Race, gender, ethnicity, country of origin, age, personal style, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, life experiences and many more factors contribute to this diversity.

We take ongoing action to improve the diversity of our workforce by: