Principal Product Manager - Electric at BURN

About the role

BURN Manufacturing is seeking a highly skilled and experienced Principal Product Manager to join our rapidly growing team. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in hardware development projects, excellent leadership abilities, and a proven track record of delivering successful products to market in Africa.

As a Principal Product Manager leading product development of a new line of electric products, you will play a crucial role in driving the strategic vision and successful launch of our new innovative hardware electrical consumer product to market. You will collaborate with cross-functional global teams, including engineering, design, marketing, and supply chain, to ensure the seamless execution of the product development process. Your primary focus will be on understanding customer needs, defining product strategy and requirements, and overseeing the end-to-end product development lifecycle.

Duties and Responsibilities 

Product Strategy: 

• Customer-Centric Strategy: Advocate for the customer, aligning user insights with business objectives, and develop product roadmaps based on their needs, leveraging your strategic thinking.
• Stakeholder Collaboration and Cross-Functional Alignment: Collaborate with key stakeholders, including departments such as marketing, engineering, sales, and customer support, to identify opportunities for customer and business improvements. Foster alignment between teams to ensure a holistic approach to product development, communication, and customer satisfaction.
• Data-driven decision-making and Market Research: Utilize data, feedback, and comprehensive market research, including competitive analysis, to prioritize projects and features. Translate the product strategy into actionable requirements while staying informed about industry trends and identifying emerging opportunities.

Product Management: 

• Product Lifecycle Management: Oversee the entire product lifecycle, collaborating with stakeholders from conception to launch, including task list creation, detailed specs, and adherence to scope and timelines.
• Stakeholder Communication and Engagement: Act as the liaison between engineering teams and business stakeholders, communicating issues, and scope changes, and facilitating key meetings to promote stakeholder engagement and project progress.
• Quality Assurance and Manufacturing Oversight: Define user acceptance tests, analyze quality-related data, oversee the assessment of products returning from the field, escalate potential defect modes for validation, and track manufacturing defects against spare rates. Additionally, champion the development handover process to the manufacturing operations team.

Go-To-Market: 

•  Product Strategy and Launch Coordination: Assist in go-to-market strategies and coordinate pilot projects and New Product Introduction (NPI) initiatives, including owning the local product launch process and aligning on pricing.
• Customer-Centric Advocacy and Market Segmentation: Act as the customer's voice to drive product launches by collaborating with marketing, sales, and customer experience teams. Ensure high customer satisfaction levels by conducting thorough market segmentation and tailoring product launches and marketing strategies to specific customer segments while proactively identifying opportunities and issues.

Leadership: 

• Performance and Cost Management: Establish KPIs and frameworks for product portfolio evaluation, monitor costs, and drive continuous improvement of the product development process, focusing on reducing defects and enhancing product quality.
• Communication and Sharing: Provide regular reports to business leaders, encourage knowledge sharing, and gather stakeholder feedback for product enhancement.
• Team Growth and Mentorship: Develop team competence through mentorship, training, and fostering a culture of learning and growth.

Minimum Qualifications

• Product Management Experience: Minimum of 7+ years of experience in Product Management, including oversight of the entire product lifecycle.
• Hardware Expertise: Strong understanding of the hardware development lifecycle.
• Product Delivery: Proven track record of successfully delivering products to market.
• Communication and Collaboration: Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Analytical Proficiency: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, along with the ability to meet deadlines and perform well under pressure.
• Project Management: Previous project management experience is advantageous.
• Market Knowledge: Knowledge of the local renewable energy product market is a plus, preferably in Africa.

Desired Qualifications

• Educational Background: Hold a bachelor's degree in product design, electronics, electrical, or industrial engineering, or a related field.
• Analytical and Communication Skills: Proficient in spreadsheet and database applications, with strong quantitative and qualitative analysis abilities. Possess excellent organizational and interpersonal skills, effective communication, and presentation skills.
• Industry Experience: Have 2-5 years of relevant work experience in the renewable energy sector.