Merlin Brands - Senior Manager - Innovation & New Product Development

Job Description:

Merlin Brands is looking for a technically strong Senior Manager - Innovation & New Product Development to drive the company's future product roadmap and innovation agenda.

The role goes beyond launching products- it is about identifying future consumer needs, scouting new technologies and materials, developing strategic supplier capabilities, and building scalable product platforms that enable faster innovation across categories.

The ideal candidate should have a strong engineering background with hands-on experience in consumer product development, vendor development, manufacturing, and product commercialization.

Key Responsibilities:

Innovation & Product Roadmap:

- Build and own the innovation pipeline, identifying the next generation of products beyond the current roadmap.

- Conduct market, consumer, and technology research to identify emerging product opportunities.

- Develop long-term product roadmaps aligned with Merlin Brands' growth strategy.

Product Development:

- Lead the complete product development lifecycle from concept, engineering, prototyping, testing, validation, and commercialization.

- Translate business and consumer requirements into technically feasible and commercially viable products.

- Drive faster product launches while maintaining quality and performance standards.

Technology & Material Scouting:

- Identify and evaluate new materials, manufacturing technologies, insulation solutions, coatings, plastics, metals, and sustainable alternatives.

- Benchmark global innovations and recommend technologies that improve product performance, quality, and cost competitiveness.

- Introduce new manufacturing capabilities that create a competitive advantage for Merlin Brands.

Platform Engineering:

- Develop modular product platforms and reusable components across product categories to reduce development time, optimize tooling investments, and improve manufacturing efficiency.

- Standardize engineering solutions that can be leveraged across multiple SKUs.

Product Optimization:

- Continuously improve existing products through value engineering, cost optimization, manufacturability improvements, quality enhancement, and user experience refinement.

- Drive BOM optimization and simplify product architecture without compromising performance.

Vendor Development:

- Build and develop strategic supplier partnerships capable of supporting future product innovation.

- Identify and onboard new domestic and international manufacturing partners.