About the Role
We are looking for a Product Design Systems Lead to join our Engineering organization in Pleinfeld, Germany, and shape how product design is structured and applied across Innovation and Operations. In this role, you will play a key part in bringing clarity and consistency to how products and product variants are developed, scaled, and managed over their lifecycle.
Building on a strong New Product Development foundation, you will strengthen the connection between design, industrialization, and long-term product management. As complexity and compliance requirements increase, your work will enable scalable approaches that ensure robust, manufacturable, and efficient designs.
The role combines system ownership with practical application, allowing you to influence key design decisions while driving impact through collaboration across Product Design, Process Engineering, and Operations, as well as across global businesses. It offers a unique opportunity to create sustainable structure and transparency in product design, enabling more efficient scaling and reducing engineering effort per variant over time.
Responsibilities
- Own and evolve the product design and development process across Innovation and Operations for two cable manufacturing sites in Germany and Scotland
- Define and drive the implementation of design rules for new products, and enable effective structures and systems to document, maintain, and leverage them for Product Design Engineers
- Enable efficient creation of commercial product variants by driving standardization, segmentation, and reuse of product designs, increasing scalability and reducing per-product engineering effort
- Guide product transfer into operations to ensure scalable and robust product designs
- Drive alignment between Innovation (New Product and Process Development) and Operations (Equipment Design and Process Engineering) to ensure consistent application of defined practices and standards
- Contribute to key product design decisions, including classification of development vs. product change work and targeted design reviews
- Identify and implement improvements to existing products, design standards, and engineering practices
- Ensure stable and scalable product design output as complexity and compliance requirements increase (e.g., APQP)
- Support Product Design Engineering activities for bulk cables where required
Required Qualifications
- Master’s degree (or higher) in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field
- Minimum of 5 years of professional experience in engineering within a complex manufacturing environment
- Experience in bulk cable and/or assembly manufacturing or alike, ideally within a product design or engineering context
- Demonstrated experience working across functions such as Product Design, Process Engineering, Operations, and Business
- Demonstrated experience in identifying improvement opportunities and implementing business processes
- Ability to influence and drive alignment without direct authority
- Experience managing near-term priorities and long-term strategic opportunities
- Strong analytical and structured problem-solving skills, with the ability to drive clear and pragmatic decisions
- Fluent in German and English
- Ability to travel up to 15%
Desired Qualifications
- Proven ability to drive cross-functional alignment in a global environment
- Experience working in regulated or quality-driven environments (e.g., APQP or similar frameworks)
- Several years of experience in product design, development, or related engineering roles
- Experience using CAD tools (e.g., AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, or similar) in a product design or engineering environment
