New Product Insights (NPI) Market Development Engineer

3M•Maplewood, MN

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World. Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers. This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career. The Impact You’ll Make in this Role: The person hired for the position of NPI Market Development Engineer in the Abrasive Systems Division will lead Voice of Market work to define and validate new growth spaces by uncovering unarticulated unmet customer needs. This role will strengthen ASD’s insight-led NPI pipeline by translating market, customer, competitive, and technology signals into qualified opportunity areas. Working closely with NPI Market Development Engineer (technical counterpart), Global Product Managers, technical teams, and cross-functional partners, this individual will shape opportunity hypotheses, apply AI-enabled tools where appropriate to strengthen market insight synthesis, and advance qualified concepts through early key NPI gates.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or higher (completed and verified prior to start)
Seven (7) years of combined experience in marketing, business development, product management, market development, strategy, customer insights, sales, engineering, or a related field in a private, public, government or military environment
Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Nice To Haves

Master's degree from an accredited institution
Experience engaging customers, commercial teams, or industry partners and translating market needs into business opportunities.
Experience using analytics to assess market attractiveness and develop recommendations that connect insight, customer value, and commercial impact.
Experience in NPI, front-end innovation, Voice of Market/Customer research, or growth strategy, including synthesis of customer, competitive, and market insights.
Experience applying analytics or AI-enabled tools to strengthen market insight synthesis, opportunity evaluation, and growth recommendations.
Knowledge of abrasives, industrial markets, manufacturing processes, customer applications, or adjacent spaces where 3M technologies can solve customer problems.
Ability to influence across functions, partner with technical teams, simplify complex analysis, and communicate clear executive recommendations.
Experience working effectively in a global matrix organization with curiosity, resilience, and comfort navigating ambiguity.

Responsibilities

Lead global Voice of Market efforts through engagement with customers, channel partners, industry participants, and internal commercial teams.
Define and prioritize market spaces using trend, customer, competitive, segmentation, sizing, growth, and AI-supported analysis.
Build a balanced opportunity pipeline, identifying 2–3 large NPI opportunities annually across established, adjacent, and emerging growth spaces.
Develop and validate opportunity hypotheses, value propositions, target markets, and early business cases with product and technical partners.
Communicate concise, fact-based opportunity narratives that influence prioritization, resource decisions, and progression through key NPI gates.