Product Development Manager, Strapping Systems in Vaughan

What You Will Be Accountable For

• Product Strategy, Definition & Requirements
  • Establish and own Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) in collaboration with PSG Product Management.
  • Translate customer, market, and business needs into actionable requirements.
  • Maintain traceability from requirements through design, validation, and release.
  • Own product roadmaps, standardization strategies, product datasheets, and platform scalability initiatives.
  • Provide competitive and market intelligence to support product direction.
• New Product Development (NPD) & Introduction (NPI)
  • Lead NPD and NPI activities and milestone governance for new strapping products.
  • Ensure technical reviews, risk assessments, validation plans, and release criteria are completed.
  • Drive successful product launches and transition into production.
• Technical Leadership & Engineering Excellence
  • Own product design quality, system integrity, and technical scalability for the strapping product portfolio.
  • Lead R&D product design and project-based product development activities.
  • Drive design standardization, engineering methods, and technical best practices.
  • Define design collaboration strategies with other Samuel Automation business units and external design partners.
  • Provide senior technical guidance and support escalation resolution.
  • Promote an engineering culture aligned with Configure-to-Order platform objectives.
• Strategic Technical Expectations
  • Establish product and technical requirements tools and methods.
  • Define scalable knowledge management and engineering center-of-excellence practices.
  • Drive product catalogue standardization and design-driven cost reduction initiatives.
  • Measure and improve engineering efficiency, product quality, and team engagement.
• People Leadership & Team Development
  • Lead, develop, and coach a multidisciplinary team of mechanical, electrical, and controls/software designers.
  • Establish performance objectives and conduct regular performance reviews.
  • Promote a highly collaborative, inclusive work environment where team members feel safe to propose ideas and fail forward.
  • Encourage broad ideation and innovation sessions and progressively narrow scope to realistic, executable and cost-effective machine designs.
  • Help the team translate complex, unclear, unknown, or evolving internal or customer requirements into robust, actionable technical specifications.
  • Support employee growth through mentoring, training, and career development planning.
  • Drive employee engagement, accountability, and continuous improvement culture.
  • Participate in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and workforce planning activities.
  • Manage team capacity and prioritize engineering resources across sustaining and NPD activities.
• Standards, Compliance & Industry Expertise
  • Serve as the in-house expert for applicable regulatory, safety, and industry certification requirements.
  • Ensure compliance requirements are integrated into product and design decisions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, Systems Engineering, or related discipline.
• 10+ years of experience in automation, machinery design, product development, or systems engineering.
• Strong product requirements and NPI experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading and coaching technical teams and leading product design and standardization initiatives.
• Solid understanding of industrial automation systems and engineered machinery.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Knowledge of strapping equipment and packaging automation preferred.

Special Requirements

• Occasional travel to customer and internal sites within Canada, USA, and globally.
• Ability to work effectively across engineering, manufacturing, and commercial environments.
• Comfort operating in a dynamic and evolving product portfolio environment.