Functional Leader

About Fisher & Paykel Appliances

Fisher & Paykel is a distinguished New Zealand brand with global presence and a deep-rooted local heritage. The company prides itself on a culture fueled by curiosity and passion to engineer solutions that center around people. Its core values include trust, sustainability, innovation, generosity, and curiosity. Collaboration and open dialogue are integral, with all ideas welcomed and evaluated to support the mission of becoming the most human-centred appliance brand worldwide.

Role Overview

We invite an experienced leader to take charge of nurturing and advancing the engineering capabilities behind some of the world's most thoughtfully designed appliances. This role is a key leadership position within the Product Development organization, focused on building technical expertise and leading high-performing teams dedicated to delivering exceptional products.

As a Functional Leader, you will blend solid technical knowledge with people leadership by mentoring a team of specialists, fostering an environment conducive to peak performance and continuous growth. You will also ensure technical capabilities evolve in alignment with future demands.

Within Product Development, your role will include connecting people, technical skills, and project priorities to appropriately allocate resources, facilitate knowledge sharing, and ensure the delivery of high-quality results aligned with product and business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, nurture, and develop a team of technical specialists to enable superior performance, learning, and professional growth.
• Establish deep technical capability within your function, ensuring critical knowledge is documented, exchanged, and expanded for ongoing use.
• Transform product and project priorities into clear functional and personal objectives.
• Strategically allocate personnel and resources to meet current and future product development requirements.
• Collaborate with engineering and cross-functional leaders to identify interdependencies, overcome challenges, and achieve strong project outcomes.
• Ensure technical solutions are in harmony with project goals and deliver value for customers and internal stakeholders.
• Advocate for continuous improvement, learning, and the advancement of engineering practices, tools, and processes.
• Promote clarity, accountability, open communication, and constructive debate to enhance collaboration across teams.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a seasoned technical leader passionate about fostering capability in others. You possess robust engineering or technical expertise yet comprehend that leadership extends beyond this to include setting direction, building confidence, mentoring, and integrating diverse perspectives to secure optimal results.

You are comfortable navigating between detailed technical issues and broader business implications, including product, customer, and organizational impacts. A natural curiosity drives you to seek improved methods continuously. You are adept at synthesizing information from varied sources, making well-informed decisions amid change, and discerning when to progress on less-than-perfect data.

Most importantly, you cultivate an environment where questioning, learning from experience, sharing expertise, and peak performance thrive.

Qualifications and Experience

• A tertiary qualification in Engineering or Science.
• Proven experience in leading and developing personnel within engineering, product development, or a similarly complex technical setting.
• Strong functional or technical engineering expertise, including familiarity with relevant principles, systems, and processes.
• Expertise in coaching, mentoring, and advancing technical talent.
• Competence in project management, resource allocation, and delivery oversight.
• Commercial acumen with the ability to link technical choices to broader business and customer outcomes.
• Strategic mindset with an understanding of complex systems and interdependencies.
• Excellent communication, influencing, and collaboration skills.
• Sound judgment and decision-making abilities in dynamic or complex scenarios.
• A passion for new ideas, technologies, and methods coupled with dedication to continual improvement.

Additional Information

This role offers the opportunity to join a large, multifaceted global organization headquartered in New Zealand, providing exposure to international operations without relocation.

The compensation package is competitive, complemented by career development pathways and meaningful progression opportunities. Employee benefits include generous product discounts, life and disability insurance, subsidized healthcare, an industry-leading family leave policy, an on-site subsidized café, and complimentary parking while at the office.

Fisher & Paykel is recognized annually as one of New Zealand's most trusted brands and maintains a commitment to equal employment opportunities without discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, or other protected characteristics.