- The Product Focus Leader will play a critical role in strengthening collaboration between the India engineering organization and Progress Rail s global product teams. This role is central to the transformation of the India team into a fully integrated, product-focused organization that owns end-to-end outcomes.
- The leader will be responsible for driving engineering excellence, talent development, and operational discipline across assigned product lines, ensuring alignment with global strategies while building deep technical capability in the region.
- Success in this role depends on the ability to combine strong product knowledge with leadership that inspires change, fosters accountability, and delivers measurable business value.
Responsibilities
- Lead the transformation of the India engineering team into a strategic, product-aligned organization with clear ownership of scope, performance, and results.
- Define and communicate a long-term vision for the team that supports Progress Rail s global product strategies and technology roadmap.
- Oversee engineering budgets and resource plans ensuring alignment between technical priority and value delivery.
- Lead engineering delivery for assigned product areas, ensuring designs meet quality, performance, and timing targets.
- Build and sustain a capable and motivated team with clear objectives, ownership, and accountability.
- Strengthen design processes and engineering rigor while promoting innovation and practical problem solving.
- Drive measurable improvements in engineering quality, velocity, and efficiency through effective planning and data-driven decision making.
- Serve as the primary connection between India engineering and global Progress Rail teams, ensuring smooth communication, alignment, and governance.
- Coach and mentor engineers, building technical depth and leadership capability across the team.
Leadership Skills Required
- Strategic Orientation: Ability to set direction and define long-term goals that align regional engineering outcomes with global product strategies.
- Change Leadership: Demonstrated success leading teams through transformation helping people adapt to new ways of working and building confidence during change.
- People Development: Passion for growing talent, coaching engineers, and creating opportunities for development and recognition.
- Collaboration & Influence: Builds trust and alignment across multiple functions, cultures, and geographies; influences effectively without direct authority.
- Decision Quality: Makes timely, balanced decisions that consider technical soundness, cost, risk, and customer impact.
- Execution & Accountability: Translates strategy into actions, sets clear priorities, and holds the team accountable for results.
- Communication & Stakeholder Management: Communicates with clarity, consistency, and empathy; ensures alignment at all organizational levels.
- Values-Based Leadership: Models Caterpillar s Values in Action integrity, excellence, teamwork, commitment, and safety.
Technical Skills Required
- Solid background in mechanical or electrical systems design, preferably with experience in diesel engine or locomotive applications.
- Hands-on experience with Siemens NX (Unigraphics) and Teamcenter or similar PLM systems.
- Strong knowledge of CAD/CAE practices, tolerance analysis, and design-for-manufacturing principles.
- Clear understanding of the product development lifecycle from concept and prototype through validation, production, and sustainment.
- Demonstrated ability to apply structured problem-solving tools such as DFMEA, root-cause analysis, and corrective/preventive action frameworks.
- Working knowledge of Lean and Six Sigma methods to simplify processes and improve engineering efficiency.
Experience & Background
- 15+ years of engineering or product development experience in rail, heavy equipment, or other complex industrial systems.
- Proven record of leading multi-disciplinary teams and delivering programs to cost, quality, and timing objectives.
- Demonstrated ability to develop people, build capability, and align engineering outcomes to business priorities.
- Familiarity with locomotive systems or large industrial product development, ideally having worked across multiple stages of the product lifecycle from concept and prototyping through field validation and production release.
- Experience participating in major product transformations, program launches, or multi-generation platform development is highly desirable.
- Experience operating effectively within global, matrixed organizations and collaborating across time zones and cultures.
Education
- bachelors Degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Automotive Engineering (required).
- masters Degree in Product Development or Engineering Management
- Six Sigma Green Belt, PMP, or equivalent certification (desirable)
At Caterpillar, you earn more than just a salary. We offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package that provides day-one benefits, including:
- Competitive salary and annual bonus program
- Medical and Term Life Insurance
- Short-Term Incentive Plan (STIP)
- Paid time off (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, Bereavement)
- Paid parental leave (Maternity, Paternity, Adoption)
- Creche facility for women employees
- Relocation allowance and reimbursement
- Employee Assistance Program
- Caterpillar Tuition Assistance Program (CTAP)
- Flexi Pay Benefit Program
- National Pension Scheme
- Employee Investment Plan
- Leased Car Program
- Access to 14 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that promote inclusion, engagement, and community involvement.
