Sustaining and Value Engineering Lead

Overview

Hayward Holdings Inc. (NYSE "HAYW") is the largest manufacturer of residential swimming pool equipment in the world, with a significant presence in the commercial pool market that is continuously growing. Hayward designs, manufactures, and markets a full line of residential and commercial pool and spa equipment including pumps, filters, heating, cleaners, salt chlorinators, automation, lighting, safety, flow control, and energy solutions at our company-owned facilities. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hayward also has facilities in Tennessee, Arizona, and Rhode Island as well as Canada, Spain, France, Australia, and China.

Based in our North Kingstown, RI facility and Reporting to the Director of Global Hardware Engineering, the Sustaining & Value Engineering Lead will be responsible for VAVE, obsolescence, and new feature development for Hayward's vast portfolio of pool products.

This role owns prioritization, execution strategy, and delivery of sustaining initiatives, ensuring results are achieved through a combination of cross-functional collaboration, and external partners. In addition, this role is responsible for deploying AI-enabled engineering capabilities to enhance VAVE analysis, cost optimization, and engineering decision-making.

Responsibilities

Sustaining Execution, Delivery & Quality:

• Own and prioritize sustaining activities across PCBA, controls, and system-level products
• Lead execution of VAVE, obsolescence mitigation, quality improvements, and feature enhancements
• Define execution approach, including internal vs. external resource allocation, to meet timelines and VAVE targets
• Ensure successful implementation and integration of sustaining changes into production
• Support and lead sustaining efforts related to quality issues and field failures
• Identify systemic issues and drive design or process improvements to prevent recurrence
• Track and report status, risks, progress metrics for all sustaining engineering.

Team Management:

• Lead and develop sustaining engineering team; define required skillsets, methods and resource needs
• Provide technical guidance and support to team members
• Ensure timely execution, communication, and alignment across all sustaining efforts
• Manage workload, priorities, and execution tracking for sustaining initiatives

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Collaborate with Hardware, Software, Operations, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Regulatory, and Quality teams
• Incorporate cross-functional input into prioritization while maintaining ownership of execution and outcomes
• Support resolution of production, field, and supply chain issues

Technical Oversight:

• Drive and participate in VAVE design reviews and provide guidance based on board-level electronics and systems experience
• Identify cost, reliability, and obsolescence risks and define mitigation strategies
• Participate in failure analysis and ensure sustaining solutions address root cause with robust fixes
• Ensure sustaining changes meet quality, reliability, and compliance standards (UL, CE, IEC)

Vendor & Resource Strategy:

• Identify capability gaps and utilize external engineering partners to accelerate execution and VAVE business assessments.
• Define scope of work and ensure quality and timeliness of external deliverables
• Propose new component strategies and circuit modernizations and drive new vendor integration.

AI-Enabled Engineering & Analytics Deployment:

• Define and deploy AI-enabled VAVE analysis capabilities to identify cost reduction opportunities across schematics, BOMs, and designs
• Establish scalable workflows and pipelines for engineering data analysis and cost optimization
• Integrate AI-driven insights, automation into sustaining prioritization and decision-making processes
• Partner with internal teams and external providers to implement practical, production-ready solutions
• Ensure AI initiatives deliver measurable impact on cost, speed, and engineering efficiency

Process & Continuous Improvement:

• Drive improvements in sustaining workflows, tools, and best practices
• Standardize engineering documentation and PLM structures to support efficient outsourcing and bid package development
• Establish repeatable, scalable execution models across sustaining activities

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
• 10-15 years of experience in electronics product development
• Experience in sustaining engineering, VAVE, quality resolution, and product lifecycle management
• Demonstrated ability to lead engineering efforts and deliver results in cross-functional, resource-constrained environments
• Experience working with external engineering vendors and manufacturing partners
• Knowledge of Altium, PLM or similar EDA tools and engineering documentation practices
• Experience or strong familiarity with data-driven or AI-assisted engineering analysis methods
• Understanding of regulatory and compliance standards (UL, CE, IEC)
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and analytical skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in high-volume electro-mechanical product development (consumer or industrial)
• Experience implementing engineering analytics, cost modeling, or data pipelines in product development environments
• Understanding of gated product development processes
• Broad system-level understanding across hardware, firmware, and mechanical domains

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