Product Development Engineer

Strottman; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

Strottman in Atlanta seeks an experienced Product Development Engineer to drive design, cost, and manufacturability for toy products. You will manage multi-discipline programs with teams in the U.S. and Asia, delivering prototypes and cost-optimized concepts.

The role requires hands-on expertise in plastics design, injection molding, mechanism design, and SolidWorks, plus strong communication to align with Creative, Account, and Manufacturing partners.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering or similar.
• At least 5+ years in project management, product design and development, preferably in a toy company.
• Experience in plastics part design, injection molding manufacturing, and mechanism design is required.
• Excellent organizational and communication skills to manage timelines.
• Ability to interface across global teams including Asia office.

Responsibilities

• Develops products ensuring feasibility of concepts for design, cost, manufacturability, and timing.
• Creates and maintains product specs with BOM, packaging, costing, and requirements.
• Provides direction to the Hong Kong Team and Asia engineering staff with sketches and specs.
• Evaluates vendor quotations and pursues cost reduction ideas.
• Maintains cost sheets and margin trackers for programs.
• Reviews production samples for manufacturability, function, safety, and aesthetics.
• Issues purchase orders and reconciles invoices against POs.
• Collaborates across multiple teams to meet milestones and adjust plans as needed.
• Builds team relationships and balances project interests to ensure on-time delivery.

Skills

Project management

Product design

Plastics design

Injection molding

Mechanism design

Organizational skills

Communication skills

MS Excel

VBA

Smartsheet

SolidWorks

3D modeling

Education

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

SolidWorks

Smartsheet

VBA

MS Excel

Job description

We’re passionate about creating toys, products, and experiences that bring kids and families together. For more than 40 years, our creativity and entrepreneurial spirit have turned great ideas into products enjoyed by millions of children.

We’re a creative company at our core. We believe the best ideas come from people who are curious, positive, hardworking, collaborative, and willing to think differently. We move with urgency, embrace challenges, and approach each day with the energy and determination to make something great happen. If you’re someone who loves to create, solve problems, move fast, take ownership, and make an impact, we’d love to meet you.

We are looking for an experienced Product Development Engineer to join our growing Atlanta office. You will have the opportunity to work on big brands and be part of an exceptional team of professionals.

The Product Development Engineer is a key role on the client team that provides project management and engineering support for multiple TOY product client programs. This is a collaborative position that works with multiple disciplines.

Additional Duties

• Develops products ensuring feasibility of concepts for functional and mechanical design, cost, manufacturability, and timing: collaborates with Creative on product design & development, provide alternative design solutions or options to unfeasible or unaffordable designs, provides predictive costing for product concepts, develop prototype samples to show design intent, conducts costing analysis to ensure designs fall within set price point
• Create and maintain product specification with bill of materials, packaging, costing, and functional requirements for manufacturing
• Provides direction to the Hong Kong Team – communicate and interface directly with the Asia engineering staff; including providing exploded views, material specs, and/or sketches of unique functions
• Evaluates pricing quotations from Asian and domestic vendors and reconciles with product specifications. Reviews pricing with team, provides solutions to costing challenges, and pursues cost reduction ideas
• Maintain accurate and timely cost sheets and margin tracker for every program in a calendar year
• Review production samples with team and provide direction to ensure manufacturability, function, safety and aesthetics
• Issues Purchase Orders on all assigned programs. Approves vendor invoices reconciling against PO’s for accurate billing
• Collaborates with project team (Hong Kong, Product Safety/Quality, Account, Creative, ID, Engineering, Logistics, Finance) on milestone objectives and timeline adherence creating action plans on missed dates and making changes to the schedule as necessary
• Works toward project team building; and maintains good relationships with all team members while neutrally balancing all competing project interests to ensure that projects complete on-time, on-budget, on-spec and within all required safety parameters

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering or similar
• At least 5+ years of experience in project management, product design and development, preferably in a toy company
• Experience in plastics part design, injection molding manufacturing, and mechanism design is required. Experience in paper design and construction is a plus
• Excellent organizational skills to coordinate multiple projects, communication skills, and the ability to manage critical timelines
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to effectively interface at all levels of the organization including Asia office. This includes discussions related to product concepts, play patterns, aesthetics and schedules with Creative and Account Management teammates
• The ability to understand creative concepts and how to translate into products that fit project parameters
• A passion for creating standout products within a collaborative team setting
• The ability to contribute to brainstorms considering multiple substrates with high and low cost targets
• Proficient in MS Excel using functions like v-look up and pivot table. Experience in VBA programing is an advantage. Smartsheet experience is a plus
• Proficient in 3D modeling using SolidWorks