Program Leader - Connected Products, Global Mobility

At Gates, we welcome challenges, celebrate hard work, and continually seek new talent to join our global company. Our Mobility business is looking for a Program Leader, directing the connected products development of electrical-mechanical products for personal mobility applications. The Program Leader drives the strategy, delivery, and evolution of our digital experience for connected mobility products-focusing on e-bikes, light electric vehicles, and rider services. This is a new role that will build the strategy and execution for connected products within Gates.

This leadership role owns the end-to-end digital experience of connected products. This includes rider-facing mobile apps, product design, connectivity-aware UX, and cloud infrastructure specific to mobility services (e.g., telemetry, OTA updates, pairing, alerts). In addition to rider experience, the Program Leader also owns B2B digital services that empower dealers, OEM partners, and internal teams with diagnostics, service tools, fleet tracking, and asset lifecycle management.

You will build and lead a team of Product Owners, UX Designers, and Frontend and Full Stack Engineers. While backend infrastructure will align with corporate IT governance, the role retains ownership of cloud services tailored for connected mobility. Please review below to see if this might be the right opportunity for you.

Team & Experience Leadership

• Build, lead, and grow a cross-functional team of Product Owners, UX/UI Designers, and Developers.
• Direct 3rd party software developers/firms to accelerate development and launch of the connected product software and services.
• Define and deliver the digital roadmap for both B2C (rider-facing) and B2B (dealer, service, OEM, internal fleet) experiences across mobile, web, and desktop platforms.
• Set the vision for digital user experience across segments, balancing user value, technical feasibility, and business impact.

Mobile & Connectivity-Focused Development

• Deliver mobile and web experiences that remain responsive under BLE instability, cellular dropouts, and real-world motion conditions.
• Oversee connectivity-resilient features such as retry flows, offline modes, pairing UX, and in-field diagnostics tools.

Mobility Cloud & Digital Services Ownership

• Own the digital cloud infrastructure specific to mobility use cases (e.g., OTA pipeline, telemetry ingestion, alerting, remote diagnostics).
• Ensure performance, scalability, and compliance with IT security and architectural standards.
• Coordinate with corporate IT, Cloud, and Infosec teams for infrastructure alignment and policy compliance.

B2B Digital Solutions

• Deliver tools and platforms for dealers and service networks to diagnose, configure, and manage connected products.
• Support OEM integration through APIs, dashboards, or SDKs tailored for system partners.
• Enable internal teams with tools for fleet tracking, remote status monitoring, and asset lifecycle management.
• Ensure secure user access, role-based permissions, and data governance across B2B portals and internal tools.

Embedded & Cloud Integration

• Align app and cloud capabilities with firmware developed by external motor or component partners.
• Define API contracts, telemetry schemas, OTA logic, and secure update flows to ensure fluid interactions across app-device-cloud.

Quality, Resilience, and Security

• Implement robust, motion-aware testing strategies covering network instability, environmental conditions, and in-field failures.
• Guarantee data security across all surfaces: firmware mobile cloud, including user authentication and device identity.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years in digital product leadership, managing cross-functional teams spanning product, design, and engineering.
• Strategic and tactical experience and success building strategic plans, teams, and launching products as the designated responsible individual.
• Track record of delivering connected mobile applications and cloud infrastructure in vehicle, micromobility, or rugged IoT environments.
• Strong expertise in BLE, LTE/5G, and their challenges under dynamic and mobile use conditions.
• Experience delivering B2B solutions (e.g., diagnostics portals, fleet tools, partner integrations).
• Ability to work across departments to ensure alignment with IT infrastructure, cloud policy, and data security standards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with OTA frameworks, MQTT or similar protocols, and scalable telemetry ingestion.
• Familiarity with UX design for pairing, intermittent connectivity, and mobile diagnostics tools.
• Knowledge of mobile-cloud security protocols (OAuth2, token-based auth, firmware integrity checks).
• Passion for personal mobility products such as bikes, e-bikes, motorcycles, scooters. And powersports.

Skills and Capabilities

• The ability to lead and influence up and down the organization.
• Superior attention to detail with and ability to manage complex projects and detailed planning.
• Passion for making great products.
• An understanding of how things are made.
• This position demands technical strengths in many areas, including design, simulation, prototyping, and commercialization.
• Solid project management skills
• Self-motivated and proactive with demonstrated creative and critical thinking capabilities.
• Highest values on safety in personal work practices and consideration in design of processes and equipment.
• A preference to hands on work style.