Hardware NPI Program Manager
Chefman · Mahwah · $130,000–$135,000 (stated in the posting)
Chefman & CHEF iQ is looking for a Hardware NPI Project Manager to own our products from first sketch to store shelf. You'll be the person who keeps engineering, design, and business all pointed in the same direction — the one who can walk into an engineering review and ask the right technical question, then walk into an executive update ten minutes later and explain exactly what it means for the launch date.
This isn't a role where you sit above the work. You're in it — reviewing drawings, understanding design constraints, catching the problem before it becomes a delay, and pushing a project from a rough concept all the way through production and onto a retailer's shelf.
What you'll actually be doing:
- Own the schedule. Not just track it — build it, defend it, and know exactly where the risk is before anyone else does.
- Be the translator. Take a complex engineering tradeoff and explain it clearly to people who don't live in CAD software, and vice versa.
- Get hands-on when it matters. Review drawings, understand specs, and speak the language of the engineers you're working with.
- Run point with our overseas manufacturing partners, keeping quality, timing, and cost aligned.
- Brief senior leadership with real recommendations, not just status updates — including the trade-offs and risks they need to know about.
- Move fast. This is a growing team building genuinely new products, not maintaining a mature roadmap.
What you bring:
- 3+ years in project management or engineering, ideally in consumer products, plastics, or hardware
- A track record of taking a product from concept through launch, not just one slice of the process
- Real technical grounding — mechanical or electrical design experience, comfort reading and modifying drawings
- Bonus points for SolidWorks or CREO familiarity, and experience working with overseas manufacturing partners
- The ability to present to senior leadership with confidence and clarity
- A hands-on, adaptable mindset — you'd rather solve the problem than just report it
A note on visa sponsorship: Chefman is unable to sponsor visas for this role, now or in the future, including H-1B, OPT, or STEM OPT. Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. on a permanent basis.