Functional Leader

Fisher & Paykel Appliances Ltd; Auckland; On-site; NZD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Staff discounts

Life & disability insurance

Medical cover

Whānau/Family leave

On-site café

Free parking

Job summary

Fisher & Paykel Appliances Ltd in New Zealand seeks a Functional Leader for Product Development. You will lead, coach and develop a team of specialists, building capability and guiding delivery of critical projects.

You’ll set direction, mentor engineers, translate priorities into clear goals, and collaborate with cross‑functional leaders to overcome roadblocks and drive value for customers. The role values curiosity, collaboration and continuous improvement as you help the function evolve with

Qualifications

• Experienced technical leader with ability to coach and grow specialists.
• Ability to translate product priorities into functional goals.
• Strong understanding of engineering principles, systems and processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach and develop a team of technical specialists, creating an environment that enables high performance, learning and growth.
• Build deep capability within your functional area and ensure critical technical knowledge is captured, shared and developed for future use.
• Translate product and project priorities into clear functional and individual goals.
• Effectively deploy people and resources against current and future product development requirements.
• Partner across engineering and other functions to identify interdependencies, resolve challenges and deliver strong outcomes.
• Ensure technical decisions and solutions are aligned with project goals and deliver value for both internal and external customers.
• Champion continuous improvement, learning and the evolution of engineering practices, systems and processes.
• Create clarity, accountability and open dialogue while encouraging constructive challenge and collaboration across teams.

Skills

Engineering leadership

People development

Technical credibility

Strategic thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Engineering or Science degree

Job description

The Role

Fisher & Paykel is an iconic New Zealand brand, a global company with a strong local heritage. Our origins inspire our culture of curiosity and passion to develop solutions designed around people - these are some of the core elements that make us unique. We are driven by our values of being trusted, sustainably minded, innovative, generous, and curious. As a team we take a collaborative approach and have a working environment where all ideas are heard, evaluated, and tested against our leading goal - to be the world's most human-centred appliance brand. Ready to lead, develop and grow the engineering capability behind some of the world's most thoughtfully designed appliances? This is an opportunity to play an important leadership role within Fisher & Paykel's Product Development organisation, building the capability, technical knowledge and high-performing teams that enable us to continue creating exceptional products for our customers. As a Functional Leader, you'll combine strong technical understanding with people leadership. You'll lead, coach and develop a team of specialists, creating the environment for people to perform at their best while ensuring the expertise and capability within your function continues to evolve for the future.

Where you'll make your mark

At the heart of this role is the development of an expert workforce. You'll understand the capability, strengths and motivations of your people, provide clear direction and ongoing feedback, and create meaningful opportunities for them to learn, grow and extend their expertise. Coaching and mentoring will be an important part of how you lead. You'll also take ownership for growing and maintaining the technical knowledge of your functional area. You'll remain connected to emerging technologies, practices and industry trends, while ensuring valuable knowledge is captured, shared and reused across Product Development. Alongside this, you'll ensure your team is effectively deployed against current and future product priorities, working closely with engineering and cross-functional leaders to deliver project objectives, overcome roadblocks and continuously improve how we work. The role profile specifically emphasises clear direction, two-way dialogue, coaching and mentoring, knowledge reuse, cross-functional collaboration and effective deployment of resources.

Key responsibilities

• Lead, coach and develop a team of technical specialists, creating an environment that enables high performance, learning and growth.
• Build deep capability within your functional area and ensure critical technical knowledge is captured, shared and developed for future use.
• Translate product and project priorities into clear functional and individual goals.
• Effectively deploy people and resources against current and future product development requirements.
• Partner across engineering and other functions to identify interdependencies, resolve challenges and deliver strong outcomes.
• Ensure technical decisions and solutions are aligned with project goals and deliver value for both internal and external customers.
• Champion continuous improvement, learning and the evolution of engineering practices, systems and processes.
• Create clarity, accountability and open dialogue while encouraging constructive challenge and collaboration across teams.

Who are you?

You are an experienced technical leader who gets genuine satisfaction from building capability in others. You bring strong engineering or technical credibility, but you also understand that leadership is about more than technical expertise. You know how to create direction, build confidence, coach people through challenges and bring different perspectives together to achieve the right outcome. You'll be comfortable operating across both the detail and the bigger picture — understanding technical issues while considering how decisions affect the wider product, customer and business system. You're naturally curious and continually looking for better ways of working. You can distil information from multiple sources, make sound decisions in changing environments and know when there is enough information to move forward. Most importantly, you create an environment where people can challenge thinking, learn through experience, share their expertise and do their best work.

You’ll bring

• A relevant Engineering or Science tertiary qualification.
• Experience leading and developing people within an engineering, product development or technically complex environment.
• Strong functional or technical expertise and an understanding of engineering principles, systems and processes.
• The ability to coach, mentor and grow specialist technical talent.
• Strong project, resource and delivery management capability.
• Commercial awareness and an ability to connect technical decisions with wider business and customer outcomes.
• Strategic thinking and the ability to understand broader systems and interdependencies.
• Strong communication, influencing and collaboration skills.
• Sound judgement and decision-making capability in complex or changing environments.
• A curiosity for new ideas, technologies and ways of working, combined with a commitment to continuous improvement.

What we offer

• competitive salary
• generous discounts on Fisher & Paykel and Haier products
• life and disability insurance
• subsidised medical cover
• access to our industry-leading Whānau/Family leave policy
• a subsidised on-site café
• complimentary parking when you're in the office

All of this, supported by exceptional leadership and the credibility of a world-class heritage brand — one that continues to be recognised as one of New Zealand's most Trusted Brands, year after year.

From the grandest of ideas to the smallest of details, every day we're turning our passion into performance and improving life through good design.

Here at Fisher & Paykel we're passionate about our customers and we care about the details. It's this passion that inspires us towards reaching our goal - to become the most human-centred appliance brand in the world.

Fisher & Paykel is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, or other characteristics protected by law.

Fisher & Paykel has been designing products since 1934 and has grown into a global company with products sold in more than 50 countries around the world.

The best innovators don't just understand technology, they understand people. We design technology that enriches and improves people's lives. By challenging conventional appliance design these world-first technologies have changed the way we live forever.

Learn more about Fisher & Paykel https://www.trustedbrands.co.nz/results/