Project Leader

Job Description:

Project Leader – New Product Development Engineering (OPE)

The Project Leader is accountable for the successful cross-functional delivery of moderate to high-complexity new product development (NPD) programs for outdoor power equipment (OPE). Acting as the primary integrator for the project, this role aligns the team on product requirements and strategy, owns the integrated program plan, and drives closure of gaps related to performance, cost, quality, and schedule. The Project Leader leads through influence, maintains the appropriate level of detail to proactively identify risks, barriers, and decision points, and ensures timely escalation of issues that cannot be resolved within the project team. This role communicates clear, data-driven, and decision-ready recommendations to leadership, enabling effective prioritization and rapid resolution of critical program challenges.

Key Job Functions & Responsibilities

Project Strategy & Scope Ownership

- Owns the coordinated delivery of technical and business objectives, ensuring alignment with both internal and external customer requirements
- Drives convergence of performance, features, cost, schedule, quality, and risk trade-offs.
- Ensures the cross-functional team understands priorities, success criteria, decision rights, and required deliverables.
- Challenges assumptions and identifies opportunities to improve the product, execution plan, and business outcome.

Integrated Execution & Risk Leadership

- Owns the integrated project schedule, critical path, milestone readiness, and operating rhythm across all functions.
- Drives timely closure of cross-functional gaps and escalates constraints when additional authority, resources, or business decisions are required.
- Leads project risk management, including identification, prioritization, mitigation, investment, contingency planning, and decision timing.
- Ensures functional owners maintain credible task-level plans while holding the team accountable for commitments.
- Leads projects independently and adapts the plan as priorities, risks, and business conditions change.

Financial, Quality & Launch Accountability

- Owns product cost, tooling, capital, project spending, and the financial impact of project decisions.
- Drives closure of gaps to product performance, reliability, regulatory, quality, manufacturability, supplier readiness, and launch targets.
- Partners with Operations, Quality, Sourcing, Supply Chain, and suppliers to establish specifications and deliver conforming products.
- Ensures project decisions support scalable, sustainable production and a successful ramp-up.

Team Leadership & Executive Communication

- Creates alignment and accountability between cross functional project teams.
- Provides candid, concise executive updates that communicate status through the lens of outcomes, risks, trade-offs, decisions, and support needed.
- Builds trust, resolves conflict, and maintains team momentum in ambiguous or high-pressure situations.
- Coaches project team members and reinforces strong project leadership practices.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor of Science in an engineering discipline or a closely related technical field.
- Minimum 5 years, preferred 8 years of relevant engineering, product development, manufacturing, or technical project leadership experience.
- Demonstrated success leading cross-functional product development projects of moderate to high complexity.
- Advanced capability in integrated scheduling, risk management, product costing, technical trade-offs, and launch execution.
- Ability to influence across functions, resolve misalignment, and communicate effectively with senior leadership.
- Strong technical aptitude and working knowledge of materials, manufacturing processes, product validation, and supplier development.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with outdoor power equipment, power tools, consumer products, batteries/chargers, or electromechanical systems.
- Experience leading global NPD programs through concept, design, validation, certification, tooling, pilot, and launch.
- Experience with DFMEA, DVP&R, DFM/DFA, PPAP, cost modeling, and project scheduling tools.
- Demonstrated coaching or mentoring of project engineers and cross-functional team members.

Travel

- Up to 15% travel (international and domestic).