Product Development Project Manager

Product Development Project Manager

Industry: Consumer Products / Home & Lifestyle
Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: Remote

About the Company

Our client is a premium consumer products brand focused on creating beautifully designed, high-quality products that combine performance, thoughtful formulation, and elevated aesthetics. As the company continues to expand its product portfolio, it is looking for an experienced Product Development Project Manager to bring structure, accountability, and operational excellence to its product development pipeline.

About the Role

We are looking for a Product Development Project Manager to own the end-to-end project management of new product development and existing product updates.

This is a hands-on New Product Development (NPD) role focused on bringing physical consumer products from initial brief through development, sampling, approval, manufacturing, and first production run.

You will serve as the central point of coordination between internal teams and external development partners, including packaging vendors, printers, fragrance houses, chemists, contract manufacturers, and fulfillment partners.

The ideal candidate has direct experience managing physical product development within beauty, personal care, home, CPG, or lifestyle brands and is comfortable managing multiple SKUs, vendors, and development timelines simultaneously.

Key Responsibilities

New Product Development

- Own the end-to-end project management of new product launches, from initial brief through development, sampling, approval, and first production run.
- Build and maintain detailed development timelines for each new SKU.
- Track milestones and dependencies across formulation, packaging, artwork, regulatory, manufacturing, and production workstreams.
- Coordinate workflows between internal stakeholders, including Operations, Creative, Design, and other cross-functional teams.
- Manage product and packaging sample review cycles, including tracking rounds, gathering feedback, communicating revisions, and documenting final approvals.
- Identify potential timeline, quality, cost, or production risks early and drive solutions with the appropriate stakeholders.
- Ensure products meet brand, quality, regulatory, and cost requirements before production sign-off.

Product Changes & Existing SKUs

- Manage changes to existing products, including formula updates, packaging refreshes, component changes, label revisions, and limited-edition variants.
- Maintain an accurate change log across active SKUs.
- Coordinate change requests with vendors from initial scope and quotation through sampling, approval, and implementation.
- Evaluate the inventory implications of product transitions and proactively flag potential risks.
- Communicate product changes and timing to relevant teams, including Operations, Marketing, Ecommerce, and Creative.

Vendor & Development Partner Management

- Serve as the primary day-to-day contact for external development partners, including packaging suppliers, printers, fragrance houses, chemists, contract manufacturers, and fulfillment partners.
- Manage vendor timelines, deliverables, samples, quotations, and follow-ups.
- Solicit and evaluate vendor quotes, samples, and proposals and provide clear recommendations to leadership.
- Track vendor capabilities, lead times, contacts, and active projects.
- Escalate delays, quality concerns, or other development risks before they impact launch timelines.
- Support the onboarding of new vendors and establish clear expectations, processes, and communication workflows.

Project Tracking, Documentation & Reporting

- Maintain master project trackers covering all active product development initiatives.
- Keep project statuses, milestones, dependencies, risks, and next steps current and accurate.
- Maintain product specification sheets, formulation records, regulatory documentation, sample approvals, and production sign-off files.
- Ensure documentation is properly organized, version-controlled, and accessible to relevant stakeholders.
- Build and maintain a product development calendar aligned with marketing, ecommerce, inventory, and retail launch timelines.
- Provide leadership with clear and proactive updates on project status, risks, decisions, and upcoming milestones.

Skills

- 3–5+ years of hands-on project management experience in physical product development / New Product Development (NPD).
- Experience within beauty, personal care, home, CPG, lifestyle, or a related consumer products category strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience bringing physical products from initial brief through development, sampling, approvals, manufacturing, and production.
- Experience working directly with external development partners such as packaging vendors, contract manufacturers, printers, fragrance houses, chemists, formulators, or component suppliers.
- Strong understanding of product development timelines, dependencies, sampling and approval processes.
- Experience managing packaging development, formulation, artwork/label changes, or product specifications is highly valuable.
- Proven ability to manage multiple SKUs and product development projects simultaneously.
- Experience maintaining project trackers, product documentation, specifications, approvals, and change logs.
- Comfortable using project management platforms such as Asana, Monday.com, Notion, or similar tools.
- PMP certification or equivalent project management training is a plus, but direct hands-on product development experience is preferred.