Sales Design Team Manager

Location: USA-Durham (US)

Experience Level: Management

Description

VPG is seeking a Field Design Engineering Manager to lead and develop our North American team of Field Design Engineers supporting industry-leading foil resistors, capacitors, current sensing, and precision measurement technologies.

This is a highly visible leadership role responsible for driving Design-Win growth, customer engagement, technical sales execution, and team development across North America. The successful candidate will partner closely with Sales, Product Management, and key customers while leading a distributed team supporting OEMs in aerospace, defense, semiconductor, medical, industrial automation, and instrumentation markets.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Field Design Engineers across North America.
• Drive performance, accountability, employee engagement, and career development.
• Recruit, onboard, and develop top engineering talent.
• Establish best practices, succession plans, and technical-commercial excellence across the organization.

Sales & Growth Execution

• Drive Design-Win strategies, opportunity development, and territory growth initiatives.
• Review pipeline health, opportunity progression, and customer engagement activities.
• Support complex customer opportunities and accelerate design adoption.
• Ensure consistent execution of opportunity management processes from identification through revenue conversion.

Commercial Leadership

• Partner with Account Managers to align technical activities with strategic account objectives.
• Ensure effective coverage of key customers, distributors, and target markets.
• Promote collaboration between FDEs, Sales, Field Application Engineers, Customer Support, and Product Management.
• Participate in business reviews, forecasting, and growth planning activities.

Operational Excellence

• Drive CRM discipline, forecast accuracy, and opportunity visibility.
• Optimize resource allocation across territories based on business priorities.
• Monitor performance metrics, pipeline quality, and Design-Win conversion rates.
• Remove execution barriers and share best practices across the team.
• standards across the organization.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Business, or a related discipline.
• 8+ years of experience in technical sales, field applications, design engineering, account management, or business development.
• 5+ years of leadership experience managing customer-facing technical teams.
• Experience supporting OEM customers and complex Design-Win sales cycles.
• Strong understanding of technical selling, opportunity management, forecasting, and CRM processes.
• Experience leading geographically dispersed teams.
• Excellent leadership, communication, coaching, and decision-making skills.

Preferred Experience

• Foil resistors, precision resistors, capacitors, current sensing, passive components, or related technologies.
• Aerospace, defense, semiconductor, industrial automation, medical, test & measurement, or instrumentation markets.
• Technical engagement with engineering, design, and R&D teams during product development cycles.

What Success Looks Like

• Increased Design Wins, bookings, and pipeline growth across North America.
• High-performing, engaged, and well-developed Field Design Engineering team.
• Strong forecast accuracy and opportunity visibility.
• Consistent execution of territory growth plans and customer engagement strategies.
• Effective collaboration across Sales, Engineering, Product Management, and Customer Support.
• Successful recruitment, onboarding, and retention of top talent.

Benefits

Company sponsored benefits that include medical, dental, vision, life, AD&D insurance, disability and flexible spending account (FSA)

Voluntary Critical Illness & Accidental Injury Insurance

Company 401(k) Plan with 4% employer match (Employee/Employer Contributions 100% vested upon hire)

Paid vacation and holidays

Position is bonus eligible