Senior Principal Design Manager

As the senior principal engineering authority for Byrna's R&D organization, you will drive the standards, discipline, and technical excellence that shape every product we build. Your leadership will focus on:

• Elevating Engineering Capability - Build a stronger engineering culture by coaching mid-and junior-level engineers through structured design reviews, written guidelines, and ongoing mentorship. Roughly 40% of your role is dedicated to raising the bar for design rigor and team capability.
• Owning Design & DFx Governance - Define, document, and enforce Byrna's mechanical design and DFx standards to ensure consistency, manufacturability, quality, and long-term reliability across all programs.
• Driving Technical Execution - Lead hands-on mechanical design work on high-priority programs, taking products from concept through production. Expect this to be about 60% of your time, flexing with program demands.

What This Role Is

A senior, highly technical "player-coach" position for someone who can:

• Serve as the DFx authority and leader for the R&D team
• Drive end-to-end product development
• Build a stronger, more consistent engineering culture
• Balance strategic oversight with deep technical execution

Why It Matters

Byrna is strengthening its R&D foundation, and this role fills a critical capability gap: ensuring that every product is designed with excellence, manufacturability, and long-term reliability in mind-while simultaneously developing / mentoring the next generation of engineering talent.

Design Authority, Standards & Organizational Excellence (Coach)

• Serve as the DFx and design standards authority for the R&D organization, setting, evolving, and enforcing design, documentation, and release standards, including issuing written design standards, design guidelines, and reusable exemplars that govern the work of the broader engineering team.
• Establish and normalize best-in-class DFx principles across products, platforms, and suppliers.
• Act as the external-facing DFM expert, providing clear, technically grounded feedback to component and tooling suppliers, consistent with Byrna's export control and supplier engagement policies.
• Identify systemic design, manufacturability, and process risks; proactively implement cross-program improvements and best practices.
• Lead and facilitate design reviews and technical forums that raise the engineering bar across the organization.
• Own the R&D design standards documentation set, including periodic review, revision, and version control of design and DFx standards.
• Define and track measurable indicators of design rigor and standards adoption across the team (e.g., design review participation, standards conformance in technical data packages, recurrence of preventable design defects).

Coaching, Mentorship & Capability Building (Coach)

• Actively coach and mentor peer designers through ongoing design critiques, feedback, and constructive technical challenges.
• Support skill development across the team through informal coaching, targeted training, and development of reusable design guidelines and exemplars.
• Balance near-term project delivery with longer-term engineering capability building and knowledge transfer.
• Champion a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision making across the design organization.
• Influence without authority by leveraging technical credibility, collaboration, and clear engineering judgment.
• Develop and deliver structured technical training and onboarding content for mechanical engineers joining or developing within the team.
• Provide written, documented design feedback through formal design review processes that contribute to the professional development of mid- and junior-level engineers.

Hands-On Technical Leadership (Player)

• Lead mechanical engineering efforts across the full product lifecycle, from concept development through production readiness and sustaining, on assigned priority programs.
• Personally execute mechanical design activities as needed, including CAD, tolerance stack-ups, engineering analysis, GD&T documentation, validation testing, and technical data packages.
• Own and drive Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and broader DFx execution, working directly with suppliers on part design, tooling strategies, and process optimization.
• Coordinate closely with manufacturing and supply chain to support build qualification, production release, and post-launch design improvements.
• Develop and execute robust test plans and reporting to verify designs meet performance, quality, regulatory, and reliability requirements.
• Ensure adherence to disciplined design controls, including design reviews, DFMEA, rapid prototyping, and formal release processes.
• Manage regulatory and quality documentation in alignment with Byrna's quality system and applicable industry standards.

Working Relationships

• Collaborates closely with R&D, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Operations, Regulatory/Compliance, and Program Management.
• Serves as a key technical interface with external suppliers and manufacturing partners.
• Works with Byrna leadership to support project planning, technical risk assessment, and execution prioritization.
• Reports to: VP, New Product Development and R&D

What Success Looks Like

• Products launch with strong manufacturability, quality, and robustness, with fewer late-stage surprises.
• Design standards and DFx practices are clear, consistent, and widely adopted across the organization, evidenced by published standards, documented adoption, and measurable reduction in recurring design defects.
• Engineering team capability measurably improves through coaching, shared best practices, and elevated design rigor, evidenced by structured design review participation, written design feedback, and developed training materials.
• Suppliers view Byrna as technically strong, disciplined, and collaborative in design and DFM engagement.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
• 15+ years of progressive mechanical design experience, including executing DFM/DFx on consumer or industrial products manufactured at scale.
• Demonstrated experience establishing or owning design standards, design guidelines, or DFx playbooks at an organizational (not project) level, evidenced by artifacts the candidate authored or led.
• Demonstrated experience coaching, mentoring, or formally developing other mechanical engineers, including through structured design reviews and written design feedback.
• Demonstrated experience as the external-facing technical interface with component and tooling suppliers, including direct DFM engagement.
• Working proficiency in CAD, GD&T per ASME Y14.5, tolerance stack-up analysis, and DFMEA.
• Experience taking products from concept through production release, including ownership of technical data packages.
• Eligibility to access information and technology controlled under U.S. export control laws (Export Administration Regulations and, where applicable, International Traffic in Arms Regulations).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in regulated or compliance-sensitive consumer products.
• Experience with injection molding, die casting, or similar high-volume manufacturing processes relevant to Byrna's product lines.
• Prior formal coaching, technical training development, or design-instructor experience.

Essential Functions and Work Environment

• Primarily office and engineering-lab based, with periodic time in manufacturing and supplier facilities.
• Travel: occasional domestic travel, primarily to suppliers and manufacturing partners.
• Ability to handle and operate Byrna products and prototypes consistent with company safety procedures.
• Byrna is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and supporting applicants and employees with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals throughout the application process and in the performance of essential job functions. If you require accommodation at any stage of the hiring process or while employed in this role, please notify us so we can support your success.

Compensation and Location

• Location: Andover, MA
• Salary range: $175,000 to $185,000

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Byrna is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran or military status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Employment decisions are based solely on job-related qualifications, merit, and business needs.