Director of Engineering & Product Development

Overview

Our client is a leading consumer electronics toy manufacturer. They are seeking an experienced Director of Engineering & Product Development to lead the development of consumer products from concept through to mass production with our manufacturing partners. This role blends hands-on technical leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and executive-level ownership of the product development roadmap.

Key Responsibilities

Product Development Leadership

• Lead the full lifecycle of consumer product development – from ideation, concept alignment, project parameters, prototyping to design for manufacturing (DFM), tooling, verification, and the build up to mass production and analyzing continuing production.
• Build alignment with C-Suite to translate product concepts and enhancements into production, keeping them informed and working with manufacturers on iterative changes as the products evolve.

Technical Direction & Decision-Making

• Manage product requirements, engineering trade-offs, and interface across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and manufacturing.
• Drive design reviews, risk assessments, and validation plans to ensure robust, reliable, cost effective and manufacturable products.

Manufacturing & Supplier Management

• Serve as a key technical interface to China-based factories, engineering partners, resources, ensuring alignment on specifications, quality standards, timelines, and costs.
• Support production readiness reviews, and issue resolution (yield, quality, reliability), working in close partnership with Operations.
• Drive our non-China sourcing program, as we look to expand manufacturing capabilities outside of China.

Team Leadership & Organization Building

• Manage, mentor, and grow the engineering and product development team (e.g., mechanical, product design, and product ideation), setting clear goals, processes, and performance standards.
• Establish and continuously improve PD tools, documentation standards, and phasegate. With processes suitable for fast-moving consumer products.
• Determine effective resource and expenditure allocation to align with the company’s commercial goals

Executive Leadership & Communication

• Sit on the executive team and provide clear, data-driven updates on product development progress, risks, and mitigation plans.
• Collaborate cross functionally, across global time zones enabling projects to be delivered to the defined scope on time and on budget
• Contribute to portfolio and roadmap decisions, bringing a manufacturability and technical feasibility perspective to strategic discussions.

Required Experience & Qualifications

• 10+ years in engineering/product development of consumer products (e.g., toys, consumer electronics, mechanical devices), including taking multiple products from concept to mass production.
• Significant experience working directly with factories in China.
• 5+ years leading and developing engineering or product development teams.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in ME, EE, Systems, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• East Coast–based, within a few hours’ travel of NYC, with willingness to travel periodically to China.

Preferred Attributes

• Background in small to mid-sized, consumer product companies.
• Comfort operating at both strategic (roadmap, architecture-level decisions) and hands-on (design reviews, factory problem-solving) levels.