Program Manager - Quality Excellence

Job description

**About Us** SharkNinja is a global product design and technology company, with a diversified portfolio of 5-star rated lifestyle solutions that positively impact people’s lives in homes around the world. **Powered by two trusted, global brands, Shark and Ninja**, the company has a proven track record of bringing disruptive innovation to market and developing one consumer product after another has allowed SharkNinja to enter multiple product categories, driving significant growth and market share gains. Headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts with more than 4,100 associates, the company’s products are sold at key retailers, online and offline, and through distributors around the world. **AI at SharkNinja** At SharkNinja, we’re building an AI-native culture. We’re not waiting for the future; we’re creating it. Our people are expected to experiment boldly, adopt new tools, and continuously raise what’s possible to create meaningful impact for our consumers. If you believe the best way to do your job hasn’t been invented yet, you’ll fit right in. ***Position Overview:*** SharkNinja is building a new Product Excellence Program Management (PEPM) team — three roles, each owning a distinct phase of the product development lifecycle, working together to run one PE operating standard across the full lifecycle from inception to end-of-life. The vision is simple: four pods, one PE playbook — run faster. Consistent gates, escalation, and star reporting from Inception to EOL. Predicting star ratings before P0. Cutting in-market signal-to-fix to 10 days. Today, the handoffs across Product Excellence are not seamless enough. Quality insights generated upstream do not always reach the right downstream teams in time. In-market signals do not always make it back into NPD fast enough to influence the next generation. These three roles exist to close that loop — with speed. The ask for every PEPM is the same: Communicate. Act fast. Ensure the PE point of view is front and center. Each role is embedded at a specific phase of the development cycle, but all three operate as one team — sharing a common operating rhythm, a common PE playbook, and a shared accountability for ensuring nothing falls through the cracks between phases. All three roles report into VP, Product Excellence and Chief of Staff, and work in close partnership with each other, with the Product Excellence Functional leaders. ***Why This Team Exists:*** When the team is operating at its best: star prediction is running at every P0, every <4.5★ action is tracked to closure, and every STOP Production, JIRA, and RCCA is resolved inside 30 days. The PEPM team embodies all pillars of the PE mission: 1. Voice of the Consumer — ensuring consumer signal drives every program decision, not just the ones that are easy to act on. 1. 5★ satisfaction — holding the standard at every gate, from the first concept review to the last in-market quality call. 1. Lower cost of quality — finding and fixing issues early, before the consumer does. 1. Improved speed of innovation — removing friction between PE insight and engineering action so SharkNinja can move faster without moving blind. ***The Three Roles:*** 1. **Up Front PEPM — Inception to P2:** 1. Connect the future product roadmap to Product Inception (PI), Supply Chain & Retail (SC&R), Continuous Improvement (CI), QA teardowns, and testing — ensuring PE requirements are visible and tracked from the earliest program touchpoint. 1. Track VEGA Hack completion at P0, ensuring all early-stage quality and consumer experience actions are formally captured and closed. 1. Own the PE star prediction tracker — managing ACE status across the portfolio and driving actions on any program trending below 4.5 stars before it reaches the P2 gate. 1. Manage competitive samples and test tracking, ensuring the PE organization has the right reference data to make informed development decisions. 1. Represent PE in ACE Reviews, ACE End-of-Week responses, and Geo Expansion Exec forums for the Inception-to-P2 phase. 1. **NPD PEPM — P2 to 6 Months in Field:** 1. Be the voice of Product Excellence in weekly Product Reviews — tracking program health, surfacing risks, and ensuring PE requirements stay visible and actioned throughout active development. 1. Track EB0 and Pre-MP VEGA Hack completion, holding Engineering and Product Development accountable for on-time close-out. 1. Hold Testing and SC&R accountable to delivery — escalating when milestones slip and ensuring no program reaches launch with unresolved quality or certification gaps. 1. Act as the central PMO/TPM escalation point for the NPD phase, connecting Risk Assessments to Boston and London teams and ensuring cross-functional visibility of program health. 1. Represent PE in Product NPD Reviews, In-Person Reviews, and Weekly Category L1 Roundtables. 1. **In-Market PEPM — 6 Months in Field to End-of-Life:** 1. Flag in-market star dips in real time — with active focus on any SKU below 4.0 stars and proactive awareness of anything below 4.5 stars. A star dip is not a report; it is a trigger for action. 1. Own STOP Production tracking and communications, ensuring the right stakeholders are informed and corrective actions are moving at pace. 1. Track JIRA closures and Root Cause & Corrective Action (RCCA) completion to systemic resolution — with a target of all STOP/JIRA/RCCA closed inside 30 days. 1. Represent PE in Weekly PE Category Reviews (rotating category) and Geo Expansion Exec forums. ***Who We Are Looking For:*** We are hiring three people into this team, and the right candidates share a common profile but bring specific depth in their phase of the development cycle. - **Required (all three roles):** - 5–10 years of experience in program management, product management, or product excellence — ideally within consumer electronics, home appliances, or a similarly fast-paced, innovation-led product business. - Strong program management instincts: you track things to closure, you are uncomfortable when actions sit open without owners and dates, and you do not wait to be asked. - Confident cross-functional communicator — able to hold Engineering, Testing, and Supply Chain accountable, comfortable escalating when the situation demands it, and equally comfortable representing PE in senior forums. - Analytical and data-literate: you can read a star rating trend, understand what is driving it, and translate that into a clear, prioritized ask for the team around you.