Sales Design Team Manager
About The Position
VPG is seeking a Field Design Engineering Manager to lead and develop its North American team of Field Design Engineers, who support foil resistors, capacitors, current sensing, and precision measurement technologies. This highly visible leadership role is responsible for Design-Win growth, customer engagement, technical sales execution, and team development across North America. The manager partners closely with Sales, Product Management, and key customers, and leads a distributed team supporting OEMs in aerospace, defense, semiconductor, medical, industrial automation, and instrumentation markets. The role combines people leadership, sales and growth execution, commercial partnership, and operational excellence. The manager drives Design-Win strategies and territory growth, supports complex customer opportunities, partners with Account Managers on strategic accounts, and promotes cross-functional collaboration. The position also oversees CRM discipline, forecasting, pipeline visibility, resource allocation, and performance metrics.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Business, or a related discipline.
- 8+ years of experience in technical sales, field applications, design engineering, account management, or business development.
- 5+ years of leadership experience managing customer-facing technical teams.
- Experience supporting OEM customers and complex Design-Win sales cycles.
- Strong understanding of technical selling, opportunity management, forecasting, and CRM processes.
- Experience leading geographically dispersed teams.
- Excellent leadership, communication, coaching, and decision-making skills.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with foil resistors, precision resistors, capacitors, current sensing, passive components, or related technologies.
- Experience in aerospace, defense, semiconductor, industrial automation, medical, test and measurement, or instrumentation markets.
- Experience engaging technically with engineering, design, and R&D teams during product development cycles.
Responsibilities
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Field Design Engineers across North America.
- Drive team performance, accountability, employee engagement, and career development.
- Recruit, onboard, and develop engineering talent.
- Establish best practices, succession plans, and technical-commercial excellence across the organization.
- Drive Design-Win strategies, opportunity development, and territory growth initiatives.
- Review pipeline health, opportunity progression, and customer engagement activities.
- Support complex customer opportunities and accelerate design adoption.
- Ensure consistent opportunity management from identification through revenue conversion.
- Partner with Account Managers to align technical activities with strategic account objectives.
- Ensure effective coverage of key customers, distributors, and target markets.
- Promote collaboration among Field Design Engineers, Sales, Field Application Engineers, Customer Support, and Product Management.
- Participate in business reviews, forecasting, and growth planning.
- Drive CRM discipline, forecast accuracy, and opportunity visibility.
- Optimize resource allocation across territories based on business priorities.
- Monitor performance metrics, pipeline quality, and Design-Win conversion rates.
- Remove execution barriers and share best practices across the team.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Life insurance
- AD&D insurance
- Disability insurance
- Flexible spending account (FSA)
- Voluntary critical illness and accidental injury insurance
- Company 401(k) plan with a 4% employer match; employee and employer contributions are 100% vested upon hire
- Paid vacation
- Paid holidays
- Bonus eligibility
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
