An empty treadmill isn’t compelling, but once someone steps on it, the stories are limitless. Our goal is to connect people emotionally to their fitness journey. We are a global team coming from different cultures and backgrounds with a shared passion to achieve and live our mission of inspiring healthier lives.

Inspire. Innovate. Make an impact and join our team!

The Senior Program Manager is responsible for the cost, schedule, and performance of major fitness product development programs at Life Fitness.  This position coordinates overall continuous improvement, product development, and system engineering programs for consumer/commercial cardiovascular/strength equipment or connectivity products. All project phases (concept formulation, proposals, trade studies, preliminary design, fabrication, test, performance evaluation, documentation, cost reduction, product improvement, and life cycle maintenance) are part of the Program Manager’s responsibility.

This role will interface with Life Fitness product management staff, management, subcontractors, and customers. The Program Manager should have combined experience in Electrical, Mechanical and Software Development Programs:

• Managing internal and/or externally based cross-functional teams

• Working with overseas and domestic development partners

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Senior Program Manager shall be able to carry out the following responsibilities:

• Responsible for the management, performance, and completion of major consumer/commercial strength, cardiovascular, or connectivity programs.

• Experience using methodologies such as Waterfall/SDLC, Agile/Scrum product development methods within the parameters of the Life Fitness PDP PACE development process.

• Coordinates proposal preparation, establishes and monitors master plans and schedules.  Prepares budget and schedules for new developments.

• Tracks spending and program costs to budget.

• Generates and maintains program schedules.  Monitors actual vs. scheduled program progress.

• Directs the Integrated Program Team, which may include Purchasing, Engineering, Quality Assurance, Manufacturing, and administrative functional areas.

• Manages and directs all phases of a program from inception to completion. Monitors work in progress in support of programs.

• Oversees the development of design concepts and test criteria.  Implements test plans for system and component level development.

• Prepares program status reports-Financial/Functional.

• Creates and presents design review packages to management.

• Distributes well-defined and prioritized work.

• Directly supervises a small team of technical specialists and/or program managers. 

• Coordinates and implements cost reductions for redesign and procurement.

• Resolves field, service, and manufacturing issues related to the design.

• Analyzes the effect of schedule changes upon various functional areas.

• Formulates and recommends corrective action measures such as schedule revisions, labor adjustments, fund allocations and work requirements.

• Resolves technical impacts of schedule changes against established plans and parameters to determine the most practical and cost-efficient methods.

• Identifies issues requiring resolution, before they become a problem, and recommends solutions.

• Establishes common platform architectures and best design practices to reduce development time.

• Prepares statements of work and negotiates technical details for subsystem designs with outside supplies or customers.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Minimum of ten years working in or with product development teams that span electrical, mechanical, embedded and software engineering.

• Minimum of three years program management experience for integrated hardware/software products, ideally in global scope.

• Multitasking.  Ability to handle multiple simultaneous programs and priorities.

• Flexible. Able to plan for contingencies and know when to invoke them.

• Organized. Process oriented.

• Leadership.  Ability to successfully manage teams on challenging projects.

• Track record of launching successful programs.

• Proficient in MS Project as well as Excel/Word/PowerPoint

• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.

EDUCATION

BS or equivalent experience in Engineering, Management, or Science.

DESIRED SKILLS

• Experience in UI technologies and implementation

• Proven connected product development experience

• JIRA Experience

• Previous management experience with technical products.

• Certified Project Management Professional

• Certified New Product Development Professional

• Master of Project Management Degree

• MBA