Senior Innovation Analyst

Lighthouse Technology Services; Town of Tonawanda (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 135,000; Full time

Job summary

Lighthouse Technology Services is hiring a Senior Innovation Analyst to translate technical opportunities into structured business assessments. This onsite role in Buffalo, NY, requires strong product management and communication skills, with a focus on industrial sectors like civil construction.

The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor's degree and 5+ years in relevant fields, handling market sizing and stakeholder collaboration. The role offers a pay range of $100,000-135,000 annually.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in product management, product planning, business analysis, or management consulting.
• Strong understanding of industrial industries like civil construction or oil and gas.
• Demonstrated ability to transform ambiguous opportunities into clear business assessments.

Responsibilities

• Translate technical opportunities into decision-ready assessments.
• Produce rigorous opportunity assessments and deliver decision-ready recommendations.
• Lead customer validation to ground opportunities in real demand.

Skills

Product management

Business analysis

Market sizing

Competitive positioning

Strong written communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA or business-focused graduate degree

Job description

Lighthouse Technology Services is partnering with our client to fill their Senior Innovation Analyst role! This is a direct placement opportunity and will be onsite in Buffalo, NY. No C2C or subcontracting arrangements will be considered.

Role Summary

Translate technical opportunities into decision-ready business assessments that drive product development priorities. Bridge technical specialists, product teams, and leadership by transforming raw product ideas into structured evaluations including market sizing, customer value, competitive positioning, and business case fundamentals.

What You'll Be Doing

Opportunity Assessment & Analysis

• Transform half-formed technical concepts into structured business assessments by collaborating with technical specialists, product experts, and engineering teams
• Produce rigorous opportunity assessments including market sizing, customer value framing, competitive positioning, target customer identification, business case fundamentals (TCO, ROI, payback), and risk analysis
• Deliver decision-ready recommendations that directly inform executive prioritization and investment decisions

Customer Validation

• Lead targeted customer engagement to validate assessment assumptions and ground opportunities in real demand
• Conduct on-site discovery with plant managers, process engineers, and operations leadership to test business-critical assumptions

Market Requirements Documentation

• Author Market Requirements Documents (MRDs) for prioritized opportunities, defining market problems, customer segments, use cases, competitive landscape, and success metrics
• Provide structured handoffs to product and engineering teams for downstream development
• Maintain working knowledge of competitive offerings, pricing dynamics, and market trends across verticals (Mining & Industrial, Oil & Gas Drilling, Civil Construction) and adjacent industries
• Ground all assessments in current market reality

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Build strong cross-functional relationships with technical, commercial, and operations teams
• Guide engineers and product specialists in framing business questions and support commercial leaders with structured opportunity views for innovation investment decisions

What You'll Need to Have

• Travel: Up to 15% to customer sites, plants, and industry events
• Bachelor's degree required; MBA or other business-focused graduate degree strongly preferred, ideally paired with a technical undergraduate (engineering, science, or related discipline).
• 5+ years in product management, product planning, business analysis, management consulting (especially industrial practices), or related disciplines that develop structured business judgment.
• Strong understanding of industrial industries: (examples: civil construction, mining, oil & gas)
• Demonstrated ability to take ambiguous opportunities and develop them into clear, decision-ready business assessments.
• Strong written communication, particularly in structured analytical documents, opportunity assessments, business cases, MRDs, executive briefs, or similar artifacts.
• Comfortable working alongside technical experts and translating between technical possibility and business viability. Industrial, manufacturing, or B2B equipment context strongly preferred.
• Strong business judgment: comfortable with market sizing, value-in-use logic, TCO and ROI fundamentals, competitive positioning, and the trade-offs that arise in prioritization decisions.
• Self-directed and effective in ambiguity; able to structure problems independently and bring well-framed recommendations forward rather than waiting for direction

Pay Range

Pay Range: $100,000-135,000/annually

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