Sr. Product Manager – Product Innovation
About The Position
SanDisk’s Product Innovation Team operates at the front end of product innovation—identifying emerging technology opportunities and transforming them into validated product concepts ready for incubation within Product, Engineering, and Go-To-Market (GTM) teams. As the Director of Product Management for Product Innovation, you will lead the innovation portfolio and operating rhythm that converts emerging technologies and consumer insights into evidence-backed product opportunities. You will guide concepts from early exploration through incubation readiness by combining consumer insight, technical experimentation, ecosystem collaboration, and rapid prototyping. This role requires a leader who can operate comfortably in ambiguous spaces while building clarity through structured experimentation and cross-functional collaboration. You will work closely with Research, Engineering, Industrial Design, Software (UX/UI), Ecosystem & Partner Development, and Product teams to explore new growth vectors and develop differentiated product concepts across domains such as Edge AI, wireless technologies, wearables, and immersive computing platforms. The outcome of this role is a pipeline of validated, high-potential product concepts that accelerate SanDisk’s long-term growth and technology leadership.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in product management, innovation, or systems architecture within consumer electronics, storage, semiconductor, or related industries.
- Proven experience leading early-stage product discovery, concept development, and feasibility validation.
- Strong system-level understanding of technologies such as embedded systems, storage, wireless connectivity, sensors, edge AI, or spatial computing platforms.
- Experience collaborating with engineering, industrial design, UX/UI, and ecosystem partners to develop new product concepts.
- Ability to drive structured experimentation from concept hypothesis through prototype validation.
- Strong strategic thinking and ability to translate technology trends into product opportunities.
- Excellent communication and storytelling skills with the ability to present innovation concepts and recommendations to executive leadership.
- Experience leading product managers or cross-functional innovation teams.
Nice To Haves
- Familiarity with Edge AI frameworks, wearable platforms, wireless protocols, or AR/VR ecosystems.
- Experience working in innovation labs, advanced development teams, or incubation organizations.
- Background collaborating with industrial design, UX/UI teams, or system architecture groups.
- Experience evaluating emerging technology ecosystems, startup partnerships, or early-stage technology platforms.
Responsibilities
- Lead Innovation Strategy & Portfolio Development
- Define and maintain the innovation roadmap and concept pipeline aligned with long-term company growth priorities.
- Identify emerging technology opportunities and frame them into clear product opportunity areas and concept briefs.
- Establish disciplined entry/exit criteria and evidence thresholds to prioritize, advance, pivot, or terminate concepts.
- Translate Consumer Insights into Product Opportunities
- Partner with research teams to identify unmet consumer needs and emerging use cases through qualitative and quantitative research.
- Translate insights into testable hypotheses, product strategies, and value propositions.
- Define measurement frameworks and success criteria for concept validation.
- Drive Concept Development and Prototyping
- Define early product requirements (PRD-Lite), user journeys, and architectural direction.
- Lead cross-functional prototyping efforts with Engineering and Technical Applications Engineering to validate desirability, feasibility, and viability.
- Produce technical proof points and working prototypes that demonstrate differentiation and system feasibility.
- Build Ecosystem & Partner Engagement
- Collaborate with technology partners including platform providers, silicon vendors, startups, and ODMs to explore joint innovation opportunities.
- Evaluate emerging standards, interfaces, and platform ecosystems that could shape future product architectures.
- Identify partnerships or technology opportunities that accelerate time-to-market and differentiation.
- Prepare Concepts for Product Incubation
- Develop decision-ready incubation packages including value proposition, early product requirements, GTM hypotheses, user journeys, and risk analysis.
- Lead concept reviews and executive discussions to guide incubation decisions.
- Ensure clean handoffs into Product, Engineering, and GTM teams for development and commercialization.
- Lead Cross-Functional Innovation Collaboration
- Lead cross-functional discovery sprints and innovation programs across engineering, design, and product teams.
- Establish operating mechanisms that accelerate learning cycles and reduce uncertainty.
- Foster a culture of experimentation and evidence-based decision making.
Benefits
- paid vacation time
- paid sick leave
- medical/dental/vision insurance
- life, accident and disability insurance
- tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts
- employee assistance program
- other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity
- tuition reimbursement
- transit
- the Applause Program
- employee stock purchase plan
- the Sandisk's Savings 401(k) Plan
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
501-1,000 employees
