Vice President of Product Development

Franklin Craft; Connecticut; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Franklin Craft is seeking a VP of Product to shape the product and technology agenda across precision instrumentation and measurement solutions. This executive will translate customer and market needs into differentiated offerings and build the disciplines required to accelerate organic growth, operating at the intersection of product management, development, commercial strategy and general management.

The role requires leading multi-year portfolio strategy, lifecycle management, pricing

Qualifications

• Significant senior product leadership within engineered products.
• Deep product management experience including portfolio strategy, roadmap ownership, market segmentation, pricing/mix.
• Experience working closely with Engineering/R&D in a tech-driven environment.
• Commercial experience across multiple markets or regions.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational change and scaling.
• Strong financial acumen and disciplined decision-making around forecasts and margins.
• Experience in precision instrumentation or related technical markets.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the product strategy and multi-year portfolio roadmap.
• Lead market-back planning through customer insight and competitive intelligence.
• Own product portfolio priorities across lifecycle, pricing and mix.
• Partner with Engineering and R&D to translate requirements into differentiated tech.
• Establish metrics for new-product performance, orders, growth and profitability.
• Sharpen go-to-market priorities and strengthen strategic customer relationships.
• Align product with Operations, Finance and other functions for growth.
• Clarify roles and accountability across product management and technical teams.
• Develop and coach product and technical leaders for high accountability.
• Contribute as a senior member of the leadership team with financial judgment.

Skills

Senior product leadership

Portfolio strategy

Roadmap ownership

Market insights

Cross-functional leadership

Financial acumen

Technical market knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering/physics

MBA or advanced technical degree (preferred)

Job description

We are partnering with a global, technology-driven industrial organization to identify a VP of Product for a significant portfolio of highly engineered precision instrumentation and measurement solutions.

This executive will shape the product and technology agenda, translate customer and market needs into differentiated offerings, and build the disciplines required to accelerate organic growth. The role sits at the intersection of product management, product development, commercial strategy and general management, requiring a leader who can move comfortably between market choices, technical roadmaps and financial commitments.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the product strategy and multi-year portfolio roadmap, balancing core-market leadership, adjacent growth opportunities and disciplined investment choices.
• Lead market-back planning through customer insight, market segmentation, competitive intelligence, application analysis and clear value propositions.
• Own product portfolio priorities across lifecycle management, pricing and mix, roadmap tradeoffs, new-product investment and launch readiness.
• Partner closely with Engineering and R&D to translate market requirements into differentiated technologies and products, strengthening development cadence and stage-gate discipline.
• Establish clear metrics for new-product performance, order intake, growth, profitability and return on product-development investment.
• Work with commercial leadership to sharpen go-to-market priorities, strengthen strategic customer relationships and improve coverage across core and emerging applications.
• Align product priorities with Operations, Finance and other functions to ensure customer commitments, quality, delivery, working capital and profitability support the growth plan.
• Help evolve the organization for scale by clarifying roles, decision rights and accountability across product management and technical teams.
• Develop and coach product and technical leaders while building a high-accountability, collaborative culture.
• Contribute as a senior member of the business leadership team, bringing strong financial judgment and enterprise perspective to resource allocation and strategic decisions.

Leadership Profile

• Commercially oriented product executive who can operate credibly in a deeply technical, engineered-products environment.
• Proven ability to connect customer needs and market signals with differentiated technology, portfolio choices and disciplined roadmap execution.
• Experience leading the full product-development lifecycle from market requirements and concept through development, validation, launch and post-launch optimization.
• Strong market-analysis capability, with the ability to identify attractive segments, applications and adjacencies where the business can take share.
• Financial and general-management maturity, including comfort with forecasting, margin, resource allocation and business-performance commitments.
• Ability to simplify complexity, strengthen operating cadence and create scalable structures without losing the strengths of a technically sophisticated organization.
• Talent-focused leadership style with a track record of developing leaders, raising expectations and creating clear accountability across cross-functional teams.

Experience & Qualifications

• Significant senior product leadership, product-line leadership, business-segment leadership or P&L experience within a highly engineered products business.
• Deep product management experience including portfolio strategy, roadmap ownership, market segmentation, pricing/mix and new-product-development governance.
• Experience working closely with or leading Engineering/R&D in a technology-driven environment where technical differentiation and speed of execution matter.
• Commercial experience across multiple markets or regions, including customer engagement, market expansion, competitive analysis and partnership with sales organizations.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational change, improving scalability and aligning matrixed functions around a focused growth agenda.
• Strong financial acumen and disciplined decision-making around operating plans, forecasting, margin and investment priorities.
• Experience in precision instrumentation, photonics, semiconductor equipment, test & measurement, analytical instrumentation, advanced manufacturing or similarly technical markets is highly relevant.
• Bachelor's degree required; engineering, physics or another technical discipline preferred. MBA or advanced technical degree is a plus.