Senior Project Manager, R&D Processing

the LEGO Group; Billund; Hybrid; Confidential; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Family care leave

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Bonus scheme

Hybrid working

Job summary

The LEGO Group in Denmark is seeking a Senior Project Manager to lead strategic cross-functional projects in the earliest phases of innovation within our Research & Innovation team. You will drive development of future automated manufacturing solutions for decoration, coating, printing, and pre-assembly of moulded plastic components.

This role sits between innovation and execution, requiring you to create clarity in uncertain environments, guide diverse teams, and push technologies from concept

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in R&D environments with program management or project leadership.
• Delivered successful technology development projects as the accountable PM within engineering, manufacturing, or innovation organisations.
• Led projects in early-stage innovation environments with low maturity, moving towards proven concepts.
• Managed progression of emerging or unproven technologies from idea through concept and prototype validation.
• Applied strong technical understanding to guide decisions while balancing strategy and business value.
• Communicated technology visions and secured stakeholder support amid uncertainty and evolving outcomes.
• Solid stakeholder management skills and ability to create followership.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic cross-functional projects in the earliest phases of innovation.
• Drive development of future automated manufacturing solutions for decoration, coating, printing and pre-assembly of moulded plastic components.
• Create clarity in uncertain environments and guide cross-functional teams toward proven manufacturing prototypes.
• Ensure technologies progress from concept through to manufacturing prototypes.
• Align stakeholders on ambition, priorities, risks and progress to enable handover to Technology Transfer.

Skills

7+ years R&D

Tech development PM

Early-stage innovation

Tech maturation

Technical leadership

Stakeholder mgmt

Stakeholder management

Job description

Job Description

Just imagine taking a new manufacturing printing technology from an early idea to a proven prototype that could shape future LEGO® products. Then make it real.

About The Role

As our Senior Project Manager, you'll lead strategic cross-functional projects in the earliest phases of innovation. Working within our Research & Innovation team, you'll drive the development of future automated manufacturing solutions for decoration, coating, printing, and pre-assembly of moulded plastic components. This role sits firmly in the space between innovation and execution. You'll be responsible for creating clarity in uncertain environments, guiding cross-functional teams, and ensuring promising technologies progress from concept through to proven manufacturing prototypes.

Required Qualifications

• Built 7+ years of experience within R&D environments, combined with significant program management and/or project leadership abilities.
• Delivered successful technology development projects as the accountable project manager within engineering, manufacturing, or innovation organisations.
• Led projects in early-stage innovation environments where technologies were at a low level of maturity and required structured development towards proven concepts.
• Managed the progression of emerging or unproven technologies from initial idea through concept development and prototype validation.
• Applied strong technical understanding to guide project decisions while balancing strategic objectives and business value.
• Communicated compelling technology visions and secured stakeholder support for projects involving significant uncertainty and evolving outcomes.
• Solid Stakeholder Management Skills and ability to create followership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Worked with technologies related to decoration, coating, printing, or processing of plastic components.
• Applied knowledge of plastics within an industrial manufacturing environment.
• Gained experience within consumer goods manufacturing organisations with high product variation.
• Contributed to technology development and manufacturing innovation programmes within large-scale industrial businesses.

What You'll Build

• A clear path for maturing a highly prioritised new printing technology from ealry idea to a proven manufacturing protoype.
• Evidence of technology progression through defined technology and manufacturing readiness stages.
• Strong alignment across stakeholders on ambition, priorities, risks, and progress.
• Foundations for successful handover to Technology Transfer and future manufacturing deployment.
• Ways of working that help a growing Research & Innovation team succeed.

If you've worked in a role where you led technology development projects from early concept through to proven maturity within a large engineering or manufacturing company, you'll feel at home here. What matters most is your ability to operate confidently in low-maturity innovation environments, navigate ambiguity, and create momentum around technologies that are still being defined.

Life on the team

You'll join the newly established Research & Innovation team within R&D Processing and therefore ways of working and operating principles are not fully defined. The team's purpose is to create breakthrough concepts that could significantly influence future LEGO® products and manufacturing capabilities.

The team combines deep experience with an entrepreneurial mindset and is still shaping some of its ways of working. You'll help build those foundations while bringing people together around a shared vision and creating commitment to progress in a collaborative hybrid working rhythm.

What Success Looks Like

Success means advancing a strategically important technology programme through uncertainty while creating confidence among project teams and stakeholders. Over the next 12–18 months, the team is focused on delivering several high-priority innovation projects while continuing to establish its operating model. You'll work closely with Technology Transfer, Product Design, Quality, Materials Engineering, and manufacturing teams to ensure promising technologies develop into viable future manufacturing solutions.

Applications are reviewed on an ongoing basis. However, please note we do amend or withdraw our jobs and reserve the right to do so at any time, including prior to any advertised closing date.

What’s in it for you?

Here is what you can expect

• Family Care Leave - We offer enhanced paid leave options for those important times.
• Insurances – All colleagues are covered by our life and disability insurance which provides protection and peace of mind.
• Wellbeing - We want our people to feel well and thrive. We offer resources and benefits to nurture physical and mental wellbeing along with opportunities to build community and inspire creativity.
• Colleague Discount – We know you'll love to build, so from day 1 you will qualify for our generous colleague discount.
• Bonus - We do our best work to succeed together. When goals are reached and if eligible, you'll be rewarded through our bonus scheme.
• Your workplace Your workplace will be the office, store or factory specified in this advert.
• Hybrid Working Our hybrid work model, Best of Both offers you the option of flexibility to work from home up to two days per week. Your People Leader will discuss the principles of the model, including how this option applies to your role and team.

Children are our role models. Their curiosity, creativity and imagination inspire everything we do. We strive to create a diverse, dynamic and inclusive culture of play at the LEGO Group, where everyone feels safe, valued and they belong.

The LEGO Group is highly committed to equal employment opportunity and equal pay and seeks to encourage applicants from all backgrounds (eg. sex, gender identity or expression, race/ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, age and religion) to apply for roles in our team.

The LEGO Group is fully committed to Children’s Rights and Child Wellbeing across the globe. Candidates offered positions with high engagement with children are required to take part in Child Safeguarding Background Screening, as a condition of the offer.

Thank you for sharing our global commitment to Children’s Rights.

Just imagine building your dream career.

Then make it real.