[Hiring] Director, R&D Controlling, Sound United SBU @HARMAN International

Role Description

As the R&D Controller for Sound United, you will serve as a strategic finance partner supporting the SVP, Product Development and Engineering and the Product Line Directors, while reporting into the Sound United SBU Controller. This role is responsible for building, optimizing, forecasting, and tracking the global R&D budget that supports a shared engineering organization developing products across multiple premium audio brands and categories. In addition, development of a category profitability dashboard and corresponding KPI’s is critical.

In this role, you will help drive financial rigor and portfolio visibility across a highly complex product development environment spanning approximately 400 engineers and 25–50 new product introduction (NPI) programs annually. You will partner closely with Engineering, Category Management, Product Management, and Finance leaders to ensure engineering investments are prioritized effectively, aligned to business cases, and executed within budget while supporting profitable growth.

This position will have 3 direct reports.

What You Will Do

• In-depth business and financial analysis supporting key commercial terms with the customer.
• Ensure financial commitments including engineering budgets, sales forecasts, variable cost targets, CAPEX, and working capital are achieved.
• Lead the development, consolidation, and ongoing management of the Sound United R&D budget across shared engineering resources, product categories, and brand portfolios.
• Partner with the SVP, Product Development and Engineering, Sound United SBU Controller, and cross-functional leaders to translate portfolio priorities into detailed resource, project, and cost plans.
• Build and maintain robust financial models for NPI and research/pre-development portfolios, including rank-ordered project prioritization based on return, sales volume forecasts, strategic fit, and resource constraints.
• Track actuals, forecast, and variances monthly across engineering investments, ensuring visibility to full-year budget performance and multi-year product development programs that transcend fiscal years.
• Support business case development and review for new projects, including cost assumptions, resource requirements, launch timing, profitability expectations, and return analysis.
• Provide regular reporting and insights for Business Case Reviews (BCRs), including monthly sales performance reviews for launched products and postmortem analysis after the first full 12 months of sales.
• Drive financial discipline across product development and product categories by monitoring program spending, product cost targets, project timing, and portfolio tradeoffs to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering investments.
• Partner with Engineering and functional stakeholders to adapt plans in response to changing business conditions, portfolio shifts, and evolving resource needs while maintaining forecast accuracy and budget control.
• Develop reporting tools, dashboards, and processes that improve transparency, decision-making, and operating cadence across R&D and finance organizations.
• Act as a trusted advisor across a matrixed, global environment, balancing analytical depth, operational detail, and strong interpersonal engagement to influence outcomes.
• Support senior management with ad hoc and periodic analysis regarding sales & margin trends, profitability, scenario planning, budgeting/forecasting for assigned categories.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Finance, Accounting, or other business management discipline.
• 10+ years’ experience in Finance or Accounting role.
• Demonstrated examples/experience in leadership, influencing, and collaboration.
• Exposure to SAP / SAP Business Warehouse ERP environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Previous financial experience in customer quoting.
• Fluent in oral and written English.
• Project management skills.

Requirements

• Be willing to travel up to 10%, domestic.
• Be willing to work in an office in Carlsbad, CA or other US HARMAN locations.
• Flexibility in working hours, due to global responsibility, working around the time zones.
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment (post-offer).

Benefits

• Flexible work environment, allowing for full-time remote work globally for positions that can be performed outside a HARMAN or customer location.
• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more).
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University.
• Competitive wellness benefits.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program.
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development.

Salary Ranges

$173,250 - $254,100

HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.