Product Engineering Manager HUBER+SUHNER Polatis

Cambridge Science Park; Cambridge; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Cambridge Science Park is seeking an experienced Product Engineering Manager to lead the Product and Systems Engineering function, ensuring clear technical ownership from concept to lifecycle support.

You will drive system-level decisions, coordinate cross-functional reviews, and oversee design integration across optical, electronic, software and manufacturing domains.

Qualifications

• Minimum bachelor’s degree in a STEM subject.
• 7+ years’ experience as a product or systems engineer.
• 3+ years in a technical leadership role.
• Experience with all aspects of the product development lifecycle.
• Committed to quality and on-time delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Product and Systems Engineering function, maintaining capability, capacity, technical standards and specialist knowledge required to support the product roadmap.
• Establish clear technical ownership for every product from concept through development, industrialisation, production release and lifecycle support.
• Ensure integration of optical, opto-mechanical, electronic, embedded software, FPGA/DSP, test and manufacturing requirements into a coherent product design.
• Chair or nominate technical leadership for reviews across requirements, architecture, design, integration, verification, validation and release-readiness.
• Lead system-level technical decisions and trade-offs covering performance, reliability, control accuracy, latency, scalability, availability and cost.
• Own engineering response to significant product failures and systemic field or production issues.

Skills

Technical leadership

Lifecycle management

Product engineering

Quality focus

Education

Bachelor’s degree in STEM

Tools

Agile

Lean methods

Job description

Your tasks

The Product Engineering Manager leads and develops the Product Engineering team, ensuring clear technical ownership of products from concept through production and lifecycle support in accordance with the HUBER+SUHNER Product Evolution Process.

Main tasks and duties

• Lead and develop the Product and Systems Engineering function, maintaining the capability, capacity, technical standards and specialist knowledge required to support the OCS product roadmap.
• Establish clear technical ownership for every product from concept through development, industrialisation, production release, deployment and lifecycle support.
• Ensure optical, opto-mechanical, electronic, embedded software, application software, FPGA/DSP, test and manufacturing requirements are integrated into a coherent product design.
• Chair or nominate appropriate technical leadership for requirements, architecture, design, integration, verification, validation, qualification and release-readiness reviews.
• Lead system-level technical decisions and trade-offs covering optical performance, switching reliability, control accuracy, latency, scalability, availability, manufacturability, serviceability, cost and technical risk.
• Ensure integration, verification, validation and qualification strategies are defined early, adequately resourced and completed with objective evidence against approved requirements.
• Ensure products are designed for manufacture, assembly, test, calibration, reliability, maintainability, serviceability and deployment from the earliest development stages.
  Partner with Process Engineering, Operations, Quality and Supply Chain to achieve controlled transfer into manufacture, stable production yield, effective component traceability and closure of manufacturing-readiness risks.
• Own the engineering response to significant product failures and systemic field or production issues, ensuring rigorous root-cause analysis, containment, corrective action and prevention.
• Use field, reliability, manufacturing, test and customer data to identify product risks, drive continuous improvement and inform future product architecture and roadmap decisions.
• Ensure product risks are managed through appropriate methods including technical risk registers, design reviews, DFMEA/PFMEA inputs, reliability analysis and qualification evidence.
• Provide authoritative technical input to Product Management and Project Management on product feasibility, scope, dependencies, technical risk, resource requirements and roadmap options.
• Represent Product Engineering in customer, supplier and cross-functional technical discussions, ensuring commitments are technically credible and formally controlled.
• Maintain appropriate product documentation, design history, technical decisions, lessons learned and reusable platform knowledge throughout the product lifecycle.
• Ensure compliance with applicable company processes, customer obligations, product standards, regulatory requirements and quality-management controls.

Authorisation limits

• Approve Product and Systems Engineering deliverables within the delegated technical authority and applicable company governance.
• Approve requirements and architecture baselines, technical review outcomes, verification evidence and engineering release recommendations within the role’s assigned authority.
• Allocate Product and Systems Engineering resources within agreed organisational priorities and approved headcount.
• Stop or withhold technical approval where product safety, compliance, reliability, quality, manufacturability or requirement fulfilment has not been adequately demonstrated.
• Escalate decisions involving material changes to approved scope, cost, schedule, product strategy, customer commitments or business risk to the Head of Engineering and relevant accountable owner.
• Exercise financial authority only within the company’s approved delegation-of-authority limits.

Deputy functions

• Nominate a suitably competent senior Product or Systems Engineer to act for routine operational and technical matters during absence.
• The Head of Engineering retains accountability for material people, budget, product-release and high-risk technical decisions when the Product Engineering Manager is unavailable.

Your profile

Essential

• Minimum bachelor’s degree in an STEM subject
• 7+ years’ experience as a product or systems engineer
• 3+ years in a technical leadership role
• Experience with all aspects of the product development lifecycle
• Committed to quality and on-time delivery

Desirable

• Chartered Engineer
• Experienced managing teams
• Experience in the successful development and transfer to manufacturing of new products, manufacturing process, software, materials and test strategies for high-reliability products in a fast changing customer driven environment.
• An understanding of one or more of systems, software, electronics, mechanical or production engineering would be an advantage.
• Experience in Agile and Lean methods