VP, Engineering & Product Management

Description

BUILT TO CONNECT

Astec is a global, environmentally focused infrastructure and manufacturing company of asphalt road building and aggregate processing. Our mission is to design and build the most innovative products for the industries we serve. Leveraging innovative solutions and technologies, we serve customers all over the world.

ABOUT THE POSITION

The VP of Engineering and Product management will be responsible for enabling and driving innovation with leading-edge products, processes, and engineering services for the Infrastructure Solutions Group of Astec Industries. The VP is a strategic and operational leader responsible for overseeing the development, delivery, and innovation of the company's products. This executive role leads cross-functional engineering and product teams, drives alignment between business goals and product strategies, and ensures the execution of high-quality, scalable, and customer-centric solutions. The VP will champion a culture of technical excellence, product vision, and cross-departmental collaboration.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership & Strategy

• Set and execute the engineering and product management vision aligned with company strategy and market needs.
• Build and lead high-performing, cross-functional engineering and product teams.
• Collaborate with executive leadership on long-term product roadmap planning and technical innovation.
• Foster a culture of innovation, agility, continuous improvement, and accountability.

Engineering Oversight

• Direct the design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of products and platforms.
• Ensure engineering processes meet quality, security, scalability, and performance standards.
• Drive efficiency through technology stack optimization, DevOps, and automation best practices.
• Evaluate and implement new technologies to improve performance and competitive advantage.

Product Management

• Oversee the product lifecycle from ideation to delivery and sunset.
• Lead customer-focused product development driven by data and market insights.
• Define product vision, positioning, value proposition, and go-to-market strategies in collaboration with sales and marketing.
• Manage product roadmaps, prioritization, and release planning in alignment with company objectives.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Partner with Operations, Sales, Marketing, Service, and Finance, to support growth and customer success.
• Communicate engineering and product vision and progress clearly across the organization.
• Ensure alignment of technical and product initiatives with customer needs and business KPIs.

Key Activities:

• As a member of the management team, present ideas and suggestions for the formulation of the group's business and engineering strategies.
• Develop and maintain proactive engineering & product strategies and roadmaps, and lead both teams effectively to drive execution.
• Oversee Product Design responsibilities for New Product Development, Continuous Improvement, Advanced R&D, and Engineering.
• Oversee Quality Control and Quality Assurance functions to drive process improvement to ensure consistent engineering quality outcomes and customer experience.
• Develop and monitor budgets that meet objectives and constraints.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with personnel at the operational units and work to understand their issues, challenges, and opportunities.
• Implement the most appropriate and effective product & engineering organizational structure design to support the group and company.
• Hire, develop, evaluate, reward, and retain a highly qualified team of product & engineering professionals.
• Work to develop and maintain a culture of innovation and accountability in engineering.
• Ensure that the product & engineering teams have strong systems analysis and project management skills, and the ability to execute business-critical projects.
• Develop and maintain succession plans for the most critical positions.
• Establish metrics for managing engineering effectiveness and for measuring the impact of engineering on the business.
• Maintain oversight of all engineering projects, ensuring that commitments are properly planned, staffed, monitored, and reported.
• As appropriate, develop and enforce engineering policies, processes, development standards and methodologies.
• Monitor the industry for new technology and developments in the field of engineering.
• Assures compliance with applicable federal, state, local and corporate governance policies, regulations, and laws.
• Supports Astec's core values, mission statement and vision statement.

To be successful in this role, your experience and competencies are:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering is required.
• An advanced degree in related field, such as engineering and/or business (MBA) is preferred.
• 10+ years of career experience in engineering or supervising an engineering function, including a minimum of five years in a leadership position.
• Able to work collaboratively with diverse leaders, communicate an engineering vision and strategy across all levels of the company and build consensus around key initiatives and projects.
• Possesses exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, both oral and written; able to articulate ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to recruit, hire and motivate a high performing engineering team that values transparency and accountability.
• Possesses exceptional business acumen, analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Demonstrated experience driving engineering projects and business growth through innovation and the implementation of technology.
• Possesses solid knowledge in engineering projects and technologies, and the ability to apply these in the service of the company's key business goals.
• Experience leading complex, major projects; demonstrated skills in change management.
• Demonstrated communication, collaboration, and leadership skills
• Proven strong interpersonal skills to communicate project plans, goals and objectives and coordinate resources to complete projects within scope.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision

Supervisor and Leadership Expectations

Directors/Managers of Product Design Engineering, New Product Development, Continuous Improvement, Advanced R&D, Manufacturing, Quality Engineering, and other functions.

Our Culture and Values

Employees that become part of Astec embody the values below throughout their work.

• Continuous devotion to meeting the needs of our customers
• Honesty and integrity in all aspects of business
• Respect for all individuals
• Preserving entrepreneurial spirit and innovation
• Safety, quality and productivity as means to ensure success

NOTE: This position responsible for certain internal control responsibilities. These internal control responsibilities are verbally communicated to the incumbent and periodic feedback is provided as it relates to the performance of these internal control responsibilities.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

Office

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly exposed to risk of injury in an office environment and occasionally a manufacturing shop plant environment. Duties include a typical office setting including extensive computer work, sitting or standing. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Astec does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, gender (sex), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, citizenship status, a person's veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law or executive order.