Design Manager

Life at Elvie – Meaningful work. Exceptional people

We develop smarter technology for women and are committed to building extraordinary products that improve women’s lives. It’s a fascinating and challenging area to be addressing as it requires all our employees to stretch themselves and solve problems that no-one’s tackled before. That’s why we’re looking for skilled, curious individuals who want to grow by surrounding themselves with a diverse array of outstanding people.

Our first product, Elvie Trainer, is an award-winning app-connected trainer that helps women strengthen the pelvic floor via fun, five-minute workouts. It took the wellness industry by storm and is now available via the NHS Supply Chain. Our street cred includes more than 12 awards for innovation and design, including the prestigious Red Dot Award and an IDA Design Award.
Our second innovation: Elvie Pump, the world’s first silent wearable breast pump, is making it possible for new mothers to pump anytime, anywhere. Elvie Pump has received international praise, including being listed as one of Times 100 best inventions in 2019 and ‘wearable design of the design of the year’ at the Dezeen Awards.

As a business, Elvie has received more than 30 awards, including being named as one of 15 startups “To Watch” by The Sunday Times, ranked as the 6th fastest growing business in the UK by SyndicateRoom in 2019. Tania Boler has recently been rated as the 8th most influential person shaping british technology in 2019 by Business Insider and both products have been featured in the Oscar Nominee Gift Bags. In April 2019, Elvie announced a $42 million Series B from IPGL, Octopus Ventures and Impact Ventures, bringing the total raised thus far to over $50 million. Our Series B represented the largest ever fundraise in Femtech. This new round of financing will accelerate Elvie’s research and development efforts, as well as help grow brand awareness and distribution.

What does it mean to work at Elvie?

We work collaboratively at the forefront of the growing Femtech industry with our innovative tech-focused products. You are surrounded by people who want to improve everything and everyone around them, and are passionate about our mission. We’re driven by the fulfilment of solving hard problems are constantly considering our users and the positive impact we can have on their health and wellbeing.

We’re deeply proud of our values, which are intrinsic to the way we behave every day. We take them seriously because we want our culture to thrive.

• We make an impact – we are mission driven and not afraid to break boundaries. We relentlessly focus on going the extra mile to solve problems
• We are fearless innovators – we are passionate, curious and data-driven. We continuously embrace change and innovation
• We are in it together – we fail and learn fast, always as one team, and have fun along the way. We stay authentic and embrace our differences

We are looking for a Design Manager based in Bristol. You will be one of the first employee based in Bristol, actively supporting the creation of our new R&D facility in Bristol. It includes supporting the recruitment of the initial team in Bristol, and the opening of our new facility.

Who you are

• You have held a Design Manager or similarly senior position within a related industry (physical product development). You have worked your way up to this position over the last 10 years, which gave you broad exposure to the entire product development process
• You are a problem solver. You’ve been through the wringer on difficult projects and eventually found solutions. You’ve gained some good ‘war stories’ in the detailed design and manufacturing phases. This has given you the experience to spot potential pitfalls and avoid them on future projects
• You are able to distill inputs from product managers, customer insights, senior management team and your own gut feelings into logical and clearly described design requirements – and you empower your team to do the same
• You have an intimate knowledge of the design process – both book-smart theoretical and the often different reality – and are able to adapt it for use in most situations
• You have a great breadth of knowledge across many disciplines – research, mechanical, electronics, manufacturing, operations, reliability, approvals, project management – you may not be an expert in any of them but you can at least hold a conversation and know what questions to ask
• You are able to simplify complex decisions (often requiring balancing or compromising of conflicting requirements) and clearly explain your logic and thought process. When the best answer to these decisions is not obvious you have an amazing ability to break the problem down into smaller pieces
• You have built up realistic experience of how long design tasks take to conceptualise, design and test. You have a proven track record (working with Project Managers) for planning and organising your design projects and delivering them on time
• You are practical and hands-on and very much lead by example

What you will do

• You will own the design engineering aspects of the design process for New Product Development
• You will plan an iterative development process suitable for your project
• You will lead your team of design engineers and work alongside product researchers, product managers, project managers and product development support teams to ensure the smooth running of projects through New Product Development and into New Product Realisation (Manufacturing)
• You will get your team on board and excited by your plan. You will motivate them and give them the support they need to do their best work according to your plan
• You will clearly communicate expectations of each iteration, focussing on highest risk first
• You will define what success looks like for these iterations
• You will be responsible for the day to day decision making and setting of direction
• You will write and maintain design documentation including: design requirements, product specifications, test plans, BOM’s, 2D and 3D CAD in preparation for transfer to New Product Realisation (Manufacturing)
• On occasion, you will act as point of contact for specialists for IP capture and freedom to operate, as well as regulatory affairs
• As the project develops you will re-assess levels of resource needed in each area and make adjustments to your team as necessary
• As your project becomes more resolved you will lead on pulling together the tender pack/RFQ
• Ultimately you will manage your team to deliver game changing best-in-class products on time, on spec and on cost

Based in our new Bristol R&D facility and reporting into Head of NPD. Some travel will be expected between sites and to offices and suppliers in Asia.

Key responsibilities

• Take ownership and lead the development of best-in-class new products, delivering them on time, on spec and on cost
• Identifying a logical progression through the project following an iterative, risk based design process
• Setting realistic expectations for each iteration and writing clearly defined S.o.W’s for work that needs to be conducted by 3rd parties
• Planning and reporting on the progress of your project
• Managing a team of product design engineers and product development support teams
• Line management of direct reports including performance reviews and mentoring
• Writing and maintaining design documentation. Constantly looking for ways to make this process more efficient.