Product Engineering Team Leader

Product Engineering team leader

Azienda : Stmicroelectronics Tipo Lavoro : Full Time Catania, Sicily

Descrizione Lavoro - Product Engineering team leader

OUR STORY

At ST, we believe in the power of technology to drive innovation and make a positive impact on people, business, and society. We are a global semiconductor company, and our advanced technology & chips forms the hidden part of the world we live in today.

When you join ST, you will be part of a global business of more than 115+ nationalities and present in 40 countries, 50,000+, diverse and dedicated creators & makers of technology around the world!

Developing technologies takes more than talent: it takes amazing people who understands collaboration and respect. People with passion and desire to disrupt the status quo, push boundaries and drive innovation — whilst unlocking your own potential.

Working at ST means innovating for a future that we want to make smarter, greener, in a responsible and sustainable way. Our technology starts with you. Join us and start the future!

Your role

In this role, you will lead a team of Product Engineers and be responsible for the full product engineering lifecycle of devices mainly dedicated to specific, highly demanding automotive customers. You will coordinate and steer all product engineering activities — from industrialization and ramp-up to yield improvement, cost optimization, and quality/reliability assurance — ensuring that product performance and robustness meet stringent automotive requirements.

You will work in close interaction with the final customer, acting as a key technical interface to understand their needs, translate them into robust product and process solutions, and provide timely, clear feedback on status and issues. A strong customer-oriented attitude and proven customer management skills are essential, as you will manage technical discussions, support audits and reviews, and contribute to building long-term trustful relationships.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams (design, quality, manufacturing, marketing, and program management), driving problem-solving and continuous improvement, and ensuring that commitments on deliveries, performance, and quality are met for your assigned automotive products.

Key responsibilities

• Team leadership & organization
  • Lead, coach and develop a Product Engineering team, setting priorities, objectives and performance indicators.
  • Allocate resources across projects, balancing NPI, ramp-up and volume production support.
  • Promote a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and problem-solving within the team.
• Product industrialization & ramp-up
  • Drive product industrialization from prototype to high-volume manufacturing, ensuring process readiness and robustness.
  • Define and validate test strategy, test flows and test limits in cooperation with design and test engineering.
  • Coordinate PPAP / initial sample / qualification activities for automotive customers.
• Yield, quality and cost optimization
  • Monitor and improve yield, test time, and manufacturing cost, leveraging data analysis and DOE where appropriate.
  • Lead root cause analyses on yield, reliability and field issues, driving corrective and preventive actions with factories and design.
  • Ensure compliance with automotive quality standards (e.g., AEC‑Q100, IATF 16949, ISO 26262 interfaces where applicable).
• Customer interface & program support
  • Act as technical point of contact for key automotive customers on product and industrialization topics.
  • Prepare and deliver technical reviews, dashboards, and issue reporting to customers and internal stakeholders.
  • Support customer audits, problem-solving reviews, and escalations, ensuring fast and transparent communication.
  • Contribute to program planning and risk assessment for new automotive products.
• Cross-functional collaboration
  • Work closely with R&D/design, test, quality, manufacturing, supply chain and marketing to secure product launches and lifecycle performance.
  • Consolidate and prioritize engineering activities across sites and partners.
  • Feed back lessons learned into design rules, test strategies and manufacturing standards.

Skills and experience

Education & background

• Master’s degree in Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or related technical discipline (or equivalent experience).
• Proven experience in Product Engineering, Test Engineering, or Manufacturing Engineering in the semiconductor industry.
• Experience in automotive products or automotive customers is strongly preferred.

Technical skills

• Solid understanding of semiconductor device behavior, test principles and production flows (wafer sort, final test, backend/assembly).
• Experience with yield analysis, statistical methods and data analysis tools (e.g. JMP, Python, Excel, Spotfire or similar).
• Knowledge of characterization methodologies and reliability/qualification flows.
• Familiarity with automotive standards and requirements (AEC‑Q100, IATF 16949, ISO/TS requirements, PPAP, FMEA, 8D, control plans).
• Ability to read and challenge specifications, test plans, and data‑sheets, and to translate them into robust product and test solutions.

Customer & soft skills

• Strong customer-oriented mindset and proven customer management skills (technical workshops, audits, escalations).
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, able to synthesize complex technical topics for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving attitude, able to drive cross-functional task forces and converge on robust, sustainable solutions.
• Ability to work in an international, multi-site environment, with good command of English (spoken and written); other languages are a plus.
• High level of ownership, autonomy and prioritization, with a structured approach to planning and follow-up.

Leadership

• Demonstrated experience in leading engineers (directly or in a matrix organization) is a strong plus.
• Ability to mentor and grow junior engineers, encouraging knowledge sharing and best practice deployment.
• Comfortable in decision‑making under time pressure, including escalation when needed.

We encourage candidates who may not meet every single requirement to apply, as we appreciate diverse perspectives and provide opportunities for growth and learning. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is part of our company culture. Our DEI vision is, “At ST, you can be the true version of yourself”, we value all employee contributions and have zero tolerance for any kind of discrimination.

Joining us is also about a greater work-life balance and workplace with equal opportunities. Dedicated Employee Resource Groups for women and LGBTQIA+, hybrid work arrangements are amongst the many DEI & Sustainability initiatives that make us a great place to evolve your career.