Product Design & Engineering Project Manager

Product Design & Engineering Project Manager

Hello, I’m Winston. I’m the Co-Founder and Head of Product Design & Engineering at Sleeping Duck and I’m looking for someone who is extremely excited and passionate about driving and motivating a team to complete their best work. This role will assist me in managing our Product Design and Research and Development projects.

Our mission is to improve lives by using scientific and customer insights to address the challenges we face in achieving the best possible nights sleep. We design and engineer products and services that deliver meaningful, positive impact towards this goal. This requires us to invest deeply in understanding the factors that influence sleep quality and comfort throughout the night as well as how our interventions directly affect these factors.

In this role you need to be able to

• Take the time to understand what the leaders of the business are trying to achieve and assist in distilling this into clear projects and goals.
• Motivate and excite the teams to work on the project. Ensure clear communication to all involved about where we are with projects, what needs to be done and what we need help with.
• Have a can do attitude and always ask how you can support and service the team

A lot of the time, particularly when we are in the inception of a new product, requirements will change quickly. We may even for a while be figuring out what question to ask or what problem we need to solve. We might want a very specific thing which is hard to find. We may only want to make a small quantity of items when suppliers want to make 10s of thousands. There are multiple projects on the go. What I need is someone who can stick through all of this, stay positive, find solutions, inspire the team and keep the momentum.

You’ll thrive in this role if you keep an open mind and believe what we are doing is important and will improve our customers' lives. If you are a person who loves working on hard problems and you love working with and inspiring people, this job is for you.

What we are building at Sleeping Duck and why

Sleeping Duck is a collective of engineers, designers, customer advocates, and medical professionals united by a shared mission: to create meaningful improvements in the quality of our customers’ lives. We focus on optimising sleep, because better sleep means more energy, better focus, and a greater capacity to thrive each day.

We began by challenging the traditional mattress industry, reimagining how mattresses and bed frames are designed, engineered, and purchased. Today, we’re expanding into new frontiers of sleep science, exploring how elements like temperature regulation, sensors, and lighting can make the sleep experience more restorative, comfortable, and uninterrupted.

One of our most exciting innovations is the Z10 Body Fit System, engineered in collaboration with a neurosurgeon and leading physiotherapists. Developed to support patients experiencing chronic pain and those undergoing surgery, the Z10 is delivering exceptional results, and is currently available exclusively through physiotherapists. Projects like this are what drive us: complex problems, human-centred design, and life-changing outcomes.

Our customers consistently tell us they love what we do, and their thousands of reviews on ProductReview speak for themselves. Ultimately, that’s what fuels us: helping people get their best night’s sleep, and creating experiences that truly exceed expectations.

We currently operate in Australia and the USA and will continue to grow into international markets.

What the role looks like in practice

You’ll be working directly with me and my Product Design team. We are a small team, consisting of product designers, engineers, product managers and external consultants.

In this role you will:

1. Work with me to develop projects and their requirements. Projects areas will include R&D, Sourcing, Product Design, Product Engineering, Product/ Material Testing, and Production Implementation.
2. As we brainstorm, research and understand more about the projects, our ambitions will shift, be in step with me to understand this very clearly and adjust the project parameters accordingly.
3. Breakdown project into understandable milestones/subgoals to ensure teams are working on the right goals at the right time. This is especially important when there are multiple simultaneous projects
4. Determine the project resourcing and determine who is responsible for the tasks at hand.
5. Work closely with all members of the project team to ensure they have what they need to complete their work.
6. Build team morale through strong rapport, clear communication, and shared purpose.
7. Maintain project momentum by checking in regularly, identifying blockers, and helping to resolve them.
8. Regularly check in with me and keep me well-informed about the state of the project
9. Be willing to put your hand up and say “Yes!” to getting the job done. When I am pushing for a difficult goal, don't tell me it can't be done, ask me how we can solve the problem at hand.
10. This role will require late night meetings and the ability to fly overseas as and when required.

At the start, you will need to spend time sitting with me to understand what I’m trying to achieve. You will need to spend time across the different teams in the business to understand how they work and what they are working on.

From there you will get across all the projects we are currently working on which are at different stages. I will then get you started on a few key projects and initially I will work with you every step of the way to ensure that we are locked and synced on how I want things to run.

When you are fully comfortable in the role, you will be driving multiple projects with multiple designers and engineers and will be able to provide me with the information and context I need to drive the strategy of the business.

Success will be a precise distillation of goals and a team that is motivated and clear on what they need to do.

Relevant experience for this role

Ideally, you:

• Have worked as an engineer or industrial designer
• Have worked in a project management capacity
• Have a demonstrated ability to work with and drive teams
• Ideally worked in R&D or research based projects
• Have worked with overseas factories to develop products

I’m less concerned with the amount of work years and more interested about your approach and attitude. I am after the absolute best outcome for the customer and the product so you need to be able to work in an environment where things will change until we get it right.

What you might like or dislike

Sleeping Duck is an evolving business, with ambitious projects and multiple competing priorities. Some projects get released, some projects get cancelled. You may spend time in one area which doesn’t see the light of day. It’s sometimes hard to stay across everything that is happening and changing.

As we are pushing hard to achieve many projects you’ll be expected to do the hours necessary to achieve this. It can include late night meetings, flying overseas, meeting at odd times due to different timezones, working weekends and being in the office as much as required to get the job done.

We are here in service of the company vision and our job is to provide ways on how we can achieve it. We are inspired by big goals - and strive to see how we can make it work. “This sounds too hard, complicated, or expensive” is not a slogan which exists at Sleeping Duck.

As we are small and nimble, it’s well positioned for support and relationships. You’ll know everyone in the company, if you take the time. We all celebrate and win together.

How we hire - the process

1. Apply to this ad. I appreciate when you take the time to write personal cover letters and application notes. Reconsider the temptation to use AI to generate your words. I really just want to hear from you, personally in this instance.
2. Brittany, our P&C Lead will give you a phone call to discuss your application
3. We will meet virtually for a 1:1 - a first get to know each other - video call.
4. You’ll come into the office, see what it’s like to work here, and meet with myself and other team members. We’ll go deeper into your experience and skills.
5. An offer will be made.

The main objectives of the above is to see whether Sleeping Duck is a good fit for you, and to see how your skills and qualities match the role. You should be prepared to explain your thinking process - how do you strategically and systematically find things and how do you understand technical requirements. Have examples ready from your previous experience. Demonstrate your learnings from mistakes and what your ideal process would look like.

I want to see how you communicate with others, in a formal setting, but also informally, when we are just sitting around, having a chat. What are your motivations and challenges, fears and aspirations? What makes you - you.

If the above resonates, apply now!