Position summary:

• Asia based product developer and project manager. Manages the development process and are the eyes, ears, and hands of the USA based saddle product management team.
• As an extension of the brand, they are to uphold the standards of performance, quality, integrity and delivery Specialized customers and riders expect.
• Ensures component spec’s, colors, costs and test results meet the expectations of the product management team and are approved in time for production.
• Maintains a set weekly meeting schedule with the product teams and vendor base is essential to success. Maintaining the component development tracking tool with the results from these meetings and being able to report the status for a given project for deliver control is standard work for this role.
• The Lead Saddle Developer is chartered with getting the most out of our vendors, so relationship skills and communications are as important as technical knowledge and work ethic.
• As a direct extension of the SBC USA office, at times the Lead Saddle Developer will need to act as leader in diagnosing, solving and defining a corrective action plan when product issues arise that threaten production.

Role Responsibilities:

Product Development:

• Work with SBC and manufacturers to develop new components, materials, finishes and systems in line with the design direction and product brief
• Ride, understand the needs of riders, participate in the categories you work on to bring rider empathy to the work you do.

Data Management:

• Manage Product information: pricing, approvals, test results, photos, color matching, component specification and descriptions.
• Manage CAD/modify CAD files as needed to drive product development timelines

Quality\Compliance:

• Communicate issues found in the field and work with Quality and Engineering teams to expedite our response and ability to solve them.
• Work with QC on the diagnosis and holding the vendors accountable when production issues are found.
• Work with Suppliers and uphold SBC policy and ensure vendor alignment with SBC strategy.
• Collaborate with Compliance to ensure ALL new components and combinations are tested

Supply Chain:

• Helping to discover new sourcing options & new technologies and introduce them to the team for future business consideration.
• Work with suppliers closely to build and maintain the relationship and trust
• Work with suppliers to improve product performance, quality, testing and delivery while pushing them to innovate both in product and manufacturing to bring new products to market with improved efficiency.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain Team to ensure on time delivery of components

Skills & Knowledge:

• Great communication skills in English and Mandarin (speaking and typing).
• Proficient at working with vendors to convert engineering CAD to tooling CAD and to work through issues taking projects through R&D to commercialization. Bonus points if that experience is in Pro engineer/PTC Creo engineer software.
• Experience setting quality guidelines and working through quality issues that come up throughout development and production.
• Capable of establishing testing standards (ISO and proprietary standards to Specialized).
• Capable of managing timelines and reporting progress daily if necessary, weekly at a minimum.
• Jira and Confluence knowledge a plus
• Familiar with MS system (Outlook, Word, Excel etc.)
• Location – China

Experience:

• Preferred 8-10+ years of experience as a product developer or product engineer of consumers goods. Bonus points if that experience is developing saddles or other cycling components.