Head of Design Management
Dyson · Shenzhen
About Dyson
At Dyson we are encouraged to think differently, challenge convention and be unafraid to make mistakes.
We're creative, collaborative, practical and enthusiastic, but most of all we're hugely passionate about what we do.
Dyson offers a unique opportunity for talented individuals who wish to invent, design and develop leading products for the global market. By working in our world class multi-disciplinary project teams, these individuals will be key collaborators and influencers throughout the business, pivotal in inspiring, energising and managing the global development and execution of projects to deliver compelling new products.
Dyson is a design and innovation led company, whilst equally valuing project schedule adherence and budget adherence.
About the Role
Reporting to the Category Leader for Robotics and based in Shenzhen, China, you will lead Product Delivery across Dyson's Robot Portfolio. Accountable for all product programmes from Business Alignment (BA) through to Start of Production (SOP), you will ensure products are delivered on time, on cost, on specification and to the required quality standards.
Leading the category's Product Delivery team of Design Managers, and working closely with global engineering teams, Joint Development Partners and supply chain organisations, you will drive predictable execution of Dyson's Robotics roadmap and play a key leadership role in scaling Dyson's product development capability in China.
You will be accountable for product delivery outcomes across the Robotics portfolio, balancing technical, commercial, quality and schedule considerations to successfully convert product concepts into market-leading products.
In this role, you will be responsible for:
1. Product Delivery Leadership
- Lead product delivery across the Robot Portfolio, ensuring all projects are delivered on time, to specification, within cost targets and to the required quality standards.
- Own the successful execution of Robot product programmes from Business Alignment (BA) through to Start of Production (SOP).
- Translate Product Definition outputs into robust delivery plans, ensuring products achieve agreed customer, technical and commercial targets.
- Drive delivery predictability through disciplined planning, governance, risk management and resource alignment.
- Make balanced delivery trade-off decisions across cost, quality, schedule and performance to achieve successful business outcomes.
2. Portfolio Delivery & Governance
- Provide portfolio-level visibility of programme health, delivery confidence, risks, dependencies and resource requirements.
- Lead programme governance activities and drive timely decision-making through Product Delivery Reviews, Dyson Design Reviews and other business review forums.
- Manage design change throughout the delivery phase, ensuring decisions are aligned to programme commitments and business priorities.
- Report project progress, key risks and delivery performance to senior stakeholders across NPD, Global Supply Chain, Quality, Portfolio, Business Unit and Executive teams.
- Ensure product maturity, readiness and launch confidence are clearly understood across the organisation.
- Drive early identification and resolution of issues that threaten successful programme delivery.
3. Robot Product Delivery Organisation Leadership
- Lead and develop a team of Design Managers responsible for delivering individual Robot products from BA through to SOP.
- Provide leadership and direction to the category's Programme Management capability, ensuring strong alignment between programme execution and product delivery objectives.
- Establish a high-performing delivery organisation, ensuring appropriate capability, prioritisation and focus across the Robot portfolio.
- Create clear accountability for programme execution, delivery milestones and issue resolution.
- Coach and mentor teams to continuously improve delivery excellence, technical understanding and organisational effectiveness.
- Build organisational capability, succession plans and a culture of ownership and accountability within the Product Delivery organisation.
4. Cross-Functional Delivery
- Align engineering, operations and quality teams, including software, hardware electronics, systems, verification, manufacturing engineering, procurement, supply chain and quality functions, around successful programme delivery.
- Drive closure of technical, commercial and operational issues that threaten product delivery commitments.
- Ensure robust verification, validation, industrialisation and manufacturing readiness activities are completed in line with programme milestones.
- Maintain alignment between product performance, cost, schedule and quality objectives throughout the development lifecycle.
- Lead cross-functional decision making to resolve conflicting priorities and ensure timely delivery.
- Ensure products are technically mature, manufacturable and ready for volume production at SOP.
5. Partner & Supplier Leadership
- Build and maintain strong relationships with Joint Development Partners and external development organisations, including oversight of delivery performance, technical execution and milestone achievement.
- Indirectly lead and influence external partner teams to ensure alignment with Dyson product requirements, timelines and quality expectations.
- Work closely with suppliers, manufacturing partners and procurement teams to ensure successful product industrialisation and launch readiness.
- Drive product cost optimisation initiatives in partnership with Procurement and Supply Chain teams.
- Hold partners accountable for achieving agreed delivery, quality, performance and cost targets.
- Support the growth of Dyson's development footprint in China through strong partnership and stakeholder management.
6. Portfolio Development & Strategic Input
- Partner closely with the Head of Product Definition to ensure a seamless transition from product definition into delivery execution.
- Provide feedback on external partner product roadmaps, technology developments and available capabilities to inform future Robot portfolio planning.
- Support development of the Robot category roadmap by contributing delivery, technology and partner capability insights.
- Ensure lessons learned throughout delivery are captured and fed back into future product and technology planning activities.
- Contribute to portfolio prioritisation decisions by providing delivery feasibility, capability and risk perspectives.
About You
This role requires close alignment with senior stakeholders across NPD, Business Unit, Portfolio Planning & Execution, Global Supply Chain and Quality functions globally.
As the accountable leader for Product Delivery within the Robotics category, you will be equally comfortable operating at strategic, organisational and operational levels, providing clear leadership through complexity and ambiguity.
The successful candidate will:
- Possess a deep understanding of robotics products, technologies and development processes, with the credibility to lead multidisciplinary engineering and delivery teams.
- Demonstrate the ability to lead multiple product programmes simultaneously, balancing delivery, quality, cost and customer requirements.
- Build strong relationships and alignment across NPD, Business Unit, Portfolio, Finance, Supply Chain and Engineering leadership teams.
- Provide clear leadership and decision-making in situations involving competing priorities, technical challenges or delivery risks.
- Be comfortable influencing senior stakeholders and driving alignment across globally distributed teams and external partners.
- Lead a high-performing multidisciplinary team through complex product development and industrialisation activities.
- Drive a culture of predictable delivery, accountability and continuous improvement across the Robotics Product Delivery organisation.
- Take a data-driven approach to decision making, whilst applying sound engineering and commercial judgement.
- Be adaptable and effective in a fast-paced environment where priorities and organisational needs continue to evolve.
- Be willing to travel internationally to suppliers, Joint Development Partners and Dyson locations where required.
Qualifications / Experience
- Degree in Engineering, Science, Technology or equivalent relevant experience.
- 10+ years' experience delivering complex technical products through the full product development lifecycle.
- Significant experience within Robotics product development, including delivery of robotic systems from concept through industrialisation and launch.
- Proven track record of leading multidisciplinary engineering, product delivery, programme delivery or product development organisations within Robotics or closely related autonomous systems environments.
- Proven track record of successfully delivering products from concept approval through industrialisation and production launch.
- Strong understanding of robotic systems engineering, including the integration of hardware, software, electronics, sensing technologies and controls.
- Experience leading teams through complex product development frameworks, including design reviews, risk management and governance processes.
- Demonstrated experience influencing and aligning senior stakeholders across multiple functions and geographic regions.
- Experience working with Joint Development Partners, suppliers and manufacturing organisations.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing, industrialisation, supply chain and product cost management.
- Experience delivering connected, software-enabled consumer robotics products at scale is highly desirable.
Skills
- Leadership: Able to establish a clear vision, drive accountability and lead teams towards successful delivery outcomes.
- Product Delivery: Able to convert product strategy into executable plans and deliver predictable results through complexity.
- Decision Making: Able to make timely, balanced decisions using technical, commercial and customer considerations.
- Stakeholder Management: Able to influence and align diverse stakeholder groups, including senior leaders and external partners.
- Communication: Able to communicate complex technical and business issues clearly and effectively at all levels.
- Systems Thinking: Able to understand and manage complex interdependencies across product, technology, supply chain and programme domains.
- Commercial Acumen: Able to balance customer value, delivery constraints and business objectives.
- Continuous Improvement: Able to identify and implement better ways of working to improve organisational effectiveness and delivery performance.
Behaviours
- Energy, curiosity, resilience and a passion for creating exceptional products.
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability for outcomes.
- Confident operating in ambiguous and fast-moving environments.
- Collaborative and inclusive leadership style that builds trust across teams and functions.
- Courageous in addressing difficult issues and making challenging trade-off decisions.
- Credible with technical teams and capable of engaging deeply in engineering and product discussions.
- Pragmatic and outcome-focused, with a bias towards action and execution.
- Committed to developing people, building capability and fostering a high-performance culture.
Dyson is an equal opportunity employer. We know that great minds don’t think alike, and it takes all kinds of minds to make our technology so unique. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and employment decisions are made without regard to race, colour, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, protected veteran status or other any other dimension of diversity.