CTO – Product and Engineering — Export Manufacturing Platform

The mandate

A German export-manufacturing platform operates capable factories but loses productive time to product complexity created upstream. Sales configurations proliferate, drawings arrive after material commitment and apparently minor customer options require unique routing, tests and documentation. Plants compensate with rework, excess buffers and experienced expediters. The CTO – Product and Engineering will make design architecture, release discipline and technical change central to the productivity recovery.

The remit covers approximately 1,275 employees and material partners across product engineering, systems architecture, development, industrialisation, configuration, testing and technical documentation. The CTO reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated sponsor. Operations owns safe production and commercial leaders own market offers; the CTO owns the technical system that converts a permitted configuration into repeatable, conforming work.

The starting point is variant truth. Catalogue options, engineered specials, regional regulations and inherited product generations must be mapped to actual demand and factory consequence. The CTO will identify features that share a true module, those requiring controlled engineering and those that should no longer be sold. Revenue alone cannot justify an option whose validation, inventory and field support exceed its contribution.

Design release must become an executable contract with manufacturing. Bills of material, drawings, software, test plans, tooling and effectivity need aligned maturity. A percentage-complete status is inadequate when the missing item blocks the constraint process. The CTO will establish evidence-based gates and a rapid path for exceptions, with visible cost and customer consequence.

Engineering change will distinguish safety, compliance, defect correction, supply continuity and commercial preference. Each category needs appropriate urgency and approval. Changes already in production must reconcile affected serials, inventory, supplier work and customer documentation. Informal instructions from experienced engineers cannot remain the real control system.

Industrialisation belongs inside product development. Manufacturing engineers, quality and service should influence tolerance, testability, repair and assembly before design freeze. Digital simulation or model-based definition may help, but only when shop-floor and supplier users can consume controlled output. Technology adoption will be judged by reduced ambiguity and learning cycles, not licence count.

Export certification must remain connected to design authority. A modular change that appears technically benign may affect declared performance, safety evidence or regional documentation. The CTO will maintain the applicability of certificates and test reports by configuration, involve authorised specialists before release and ensure the factory cannot build a combination whose market approval is merely assumed.

The former CTO is leaving for a non-competing international role and can provide a brief handover. The replacement is urgent because the next product release and annual factory plan depend on architecture decisions. The hybrid Munich appointment requires frequent presence at engineering and production sites.

What you will own

• Set product architecture and configuration rules across the export portfolio.
• Establish complete engineering-release and industrialisation evidence for production.
• Govern change, effectivity, deviations and technical documentation.
• Simplify low-value variants while protecting regulated and strategic requirements.
• Integrate manufacturing, supplier, quality and service learning into development.
• Prioritise engineering capacity against product, factory and customer consequence.
• Build technical leadership and succession across scarce disciplines.
• Track engineering contribution to throughput, quality, inventory and lifecycle value.

The first 12 months

In the first 60 days, trace representative late orders from customer configuration through factory completion, quantify variant and change burden and identify incomplete releases affecting the next plan. Set interim approval on specials and late technical instructions. Agree with operations which product families offer the fastest productivity recovery.

By month six, implement release evidence and effectivity governance, retire or redesign damaging variants and embed industrialisation in priority programmes. Establish one technical debt and documentation backlog with economic and safety priorities. Make key talent decisions and restore credible interfaces between engineering and plants.

At twelve months, reduce engineering-attributable factory disruption by 50%, cut active sellable variants by 20% without losing protected revenue and improve first-pass yield by eight percentage points on selected families. Ninety-five per cent of production orders should begin with complete controlled release. Product launch dates must remain within 8% of approved timing, with no material configuration escape.

What the sponsor will measure

• Product variety earning more value than the complexity it creates.
• Production receiving stable, complete and usable technical definition.
• Changes controlled through serial, supplier and customer effectivity.
• Industrialisation shaping designs before factories absorb the consequence.
• Engineering capacity allocated to measurable business and lifecycle priorities.
• Strong technical leaders trusted by plants and customers.

The person

You bring 18–22 years in product and engineering leadership for industrial equipment, automotive systems, aerospace, automation or another configured export product. You have owned architecture and industrialisation across multiple sites and can quantify factory improvement attributable to engineering choices.

Your previous remit should encompass at least 700 engineers and partners, €750 million revenue or a comparable platform. Evidence must include a variant you removed, a release gate you strengthened and a late change whose full effectivity you controlled. German and English fluency and credibility in both design reviews and factory walks are required.

Compensation and terms

The base range is €340,000–460,000 plus annual incentive and long-term incentive linked to engineering stability, productivity, quality, launches and talent. This permanent hybrid Munich role reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor and requires regular site travel. Notice up to six months may be considered against release priorities.

Confidentiality

The platform, products, engineering defects, customers and release plans are confidential. Detailed information follows fit, conflicts and a signed undertaking. Applicants must not approach employees, suppliers or customers to infer the company or its product architecture.