Business Title: Director, FW Product Engineering

Position Summary

Lead the global Product Engineering organization responsible for UEFI customization, BIOS and firmware feature development, and platform engineering execution across Lenovo product programs. This Director-level role owns the strategic direction, operating model, and execution performance of a globally distributed team of product engineers working closely with internal engineering organizations, product management, validation, quality, and ODM partners.

The Director of Product Engineering will drive improvements in project efficiency, development transformation, and AI enablement across the development lifecycle. The role is accountable for building scalable engineering practices, improving delivery predictability, accelerating feature development, and enabling modern tools and processes that increase productivity, quality, and speed of execution across global firmware and platform development teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and scale a global team of Product Engineers responsible for UEFI customization, firmware feature development, platform enablement, and product-specific engineering execution.

• Set the strategic direction for the Product Engineering function, including operating model, engagement model, engineering standards, execution governance, and long-term capability development.

• Own portfolio-level execution for firmware customization and feature development programs across multiple platforms, product lines, geographies, and ODM partners.

• Drive project efficiency by improving planning discipline, dependency management, defect prevention, milestone readiness, engineering throughput, and cross-functional decision velocity.

• Lead development transformation initiatives that modernize engineering workflows, improve reuse, standardize execution practices, and strengthen global collaboration across teams.

• Champion AI enablement in development, including practical adoption of AI-assisted engineering tools, automation, knowledge management, defect analysis, test efficiency, and productivity improvement opportunities.

• Partner with ODMs to improve firmware development execution, technical alignment, issue resolution, delivery quality, escalation management, and accountability against program commitments.

• Collaborate with product management, platform architecture, firmware engineering, validation, security, quality, services, and customer-facing teams to align technical execution with business priorities.

• Establish clear metrics, KPIs, dashboards, and review mechanisms to monitor engineering productivity, schedule performance, quality trends, issue aging, and transformation progress.

• Lead executive-level program and operational reviews, communicating status, risks, investment needs, transformation progress, and key decisions in a concise and actionable manner.

• Identify organizational capability gaps and drive resource planning, talent development, succession planning, and investment recommendations to support future product and technology needs.

• Build a high-accountability culture focused on engineering excellence, innovation, continuous improvement, global collaboration, and customer impact.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline.

• 12+ years of experience in product engineering, firmware development, platform engineering, technical program leadership, or related engineering management roles.

• 5+ years of people management experience leading engineering teams, including managers or senior technical leaders in a global organization.

• Proven experience leading complex technology development programs across multiple functions, geographies, suppliers, and product generations.

• Demonstrated ability to define engineering strategy, drive operating model improvements, and lead organizational transformation initiatives.

• Experience working with ODM, OEM, supplier, or external development partners in a structured product development environment.

• Strong understanding of firmware, platform software, hardware bring-up, validation, quality, engineering release processes, and product development lifecycles.

• Ability to influence senior leaders, resolve complex tradeoffs, and align stakeholders across engineering, product, supplier, and business organizations.

• Excellent executive communication, leadership presence, decision facilitation, organizational planning, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with UEFI, BIOS, embedded firmware, platform firmware, device firmware, or system-level software development.

• Experience leading product engineering teams supporting commercial PC, workstation, enterprise hardware, or global platform development programs.

• Experience applying AI, automation, analytics, or modern engineering tools to improve development productivity, quality, and decision making.

• Experience transforming engineering organizations through standardization, reuse, process simplification, Agile or hybrid execution models, and measurable productivity improvements.

• Experience building global engineering operating models that include North America and Asia-based development teams and ODM partners.

• Advanced technical degree, MBA, or leadership training is a plus.

Key Focus Areas

• Project Efficiency: Improve end-to-end execution speed, schedule predictability, milestone readiness, and cross-functional decision making across firmware and platform projects.

• Development Transformation: Modernize engineering practices through reuse, standardization, improved governance, stronger metrics, workflow simplification, and global collaboration models.

• AI Enablement in Development: Accelerate adoption of AI-assisted tools, automation, analytics, and knowledge systems to improve engineering productivity, quality, and learning velocity.

Success Measures

• Improved delivery predictability for UEFI customization and firmware feature development programs.

• Measurable improvement in engineering throughput, issue closure efficiency, and development cycle time.

• Clear transformation roadmap with adopted standards, operating rhythms, engineering metrics, and accountability mechanisms.

• Practical AI-enabled development use cases deployed to improve productivity, quality, or knowledge reuse.

• Strong global team engagement, leadership bench strength, and collaboration with ODM and internal engineering partners.

• Clear executive visibility to portfolio health, risks, transformation progress, and strategic capability needs.