Sr. Director - AI Product Development & Product Excellence Transformation
About the role
This is a high-impact leadership role at the intersection of AI, product development, product quality, and organizational transformation. You will own the strategy and execution of AI integration across both SharkNinja's Product Development (PD) and Product Excellence (PE) organizations -- spanning the full product lifecycle from category strategy and conception through launch, and extending into consumer insights, product integrity, process quality, and manufacturing engineering.
Location
Boston, MA preferred; New York, NY acceptable (On-site)
Reports to
VP, Chief of Staff to the CEO
Dotted Line
Chief Product Officer and EVP, Product Excellence
Direct Reports
AI Transformation Team (AI Fellows)
The Role
You will architect and implement a unified data infrastructure across PD and PE, define and execute the AI transformation roadmap across the full PD lifecycle, lead the reimagination of program management infrastructure, transform consumer insights capabilities, reimagine product integrity workflows, strengthen PE's contribution to PRDs, build, lead, and scale a team of AI Fellows, drive change management, establish success metrics, and champion a culture of experimentation.
What You Will Do
- Data Foundation & Infrastructure
- Architect and implement a unified data infrastructure across PD and PE
- Map data assets and build ingestion pipelines
- Partner with IT and data engineering to connect PD and PE data infrastructure to the enterprise data architecture (Snowflake, AWS)
- Product Development Transformation
- Define and execute the AI transformation roadmap across the full PD lifecycle
- Lead the reimagination of program management infrastructure
- Deploy AI-powered planning intelligence
- Product Excellence Transformation
- Transform consumer insights capabilities
- Reimagine product integrity workflows
- Build AI systems for PRDs
- Team Building & Change Management
- Build, lead, and scale a team of AI Fellows
- Drive change management
- Translate complex AI capabilities into practical solutions
- Establish success metrics and report outcomes
- Champion a culture of experimentation
Who You Are
- Required
- 10+ years of professional experience in AI/ML, product development leadership, program management, data architecture, quality/product excellence, or technology transformation roles
- Strong technical fluency in AI/ML and data infrastructure
- Proven track record leading large-scale transformation or change management initiatives
- Deep understanding of product development lifecycles in a hardware or consumer electronics context
- Proven ability to build and think strategically
- Strong business acumen
- Exceptional leadership skills
- Decisive and action-oriented
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and high-velocity environments
- Strongly Preferred
- Experience at an AI-native company or within a product organization where AI was core to the development process
- Background bridging technical build teams and business stakeholders
- Experience productionalizing AI prototypes
- Familiarity with quality engineering concepts
Additional Requirements
- Travel required (domestic and international, including China manufacturing sites)
- On-site at Boston HQ or New York office full-time
Salary and Other Compensation
The annual salary range for this position is displayed below. Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include geography/market, skills, education, experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Flexible spending accounts
- Health savings accounts (HSA) with company contribution
- 401(k) retirement plan with matching
- Employee stock purchase program
- Life insurance
- AD&D
- Short-term disability insurance
- Long-term disability insurance
- Generous paid time off
- Company holidays
- Parental leave
- Identity theft protection
- Pet insurance
- Pre-paid legal insurance
- Back-up child and eldercare days
- Product discounts
- Referral bonus program
Culture
We offer competitive health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, employee stock purchase options, wellness programs, SharkNinja product discounts, and more. We empower your personal and professional growth with high impact Learning Programs featuring bold voices redefining what’s possible. When you join, you’re not just part of a company—you’re part of an outrageously extraordinary community. Together, we won’t just launch products—we’ll disrupt entire markets.