Product Engineer

About Us:

UpEnergy delivers high-impact, emission-reducing projects that accelerate decarbonization and create long-term benefits in local communities. We make life-improving clean technologies available to local communities and environments across Africa. Whether protecting the local environment, delivering health benefits, or reducing poverty through financial savings and employment, our projects sustainably benefit and enable people to live better lives within climate-resilient communities.

UpEnergy has delivered over 95 emission reduction projects, impacted over 4 million lives, and reduced over 4 million tons of CO2 Emissions across seven countries. UpEnergy prides itself on deep local knowledge and established teams on the ground to ensure the highest impact and results. The UpEnergy team continues to grow, across multiple countries and continents and seeks diligent, entrepreneurial, fun, and motivated talent excited to join us in delivering even more impact. Learn more here: www.upenergygroup.com 

About the role:

The Product Engineer provides the hands-on technical execution and product ownership required to move products from requirements and early concepts through prototyping, validation, product readiness, deployment, and lifecycle improvement.

The role combines strong engineering execution with independent technical judgement and ownership of substantial product-development workstreams, working across Engineering, Product, Electrical Engineering, country teams, manufacturing/OEM partners, and technical aftersales. The Product Engineer also provides resident technical execution capacity within the Innovation Hub and contributes to research-led development and validation of new technologies. This role will report to the Lead Engineer.

This position will be based at UpEnergy’s Global Innovation Hub in Uganda

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Product Development 

• Support the design and development of new products, product improvements, and engineering solutions across the product portfolio.
• Own substantial product-development workstreams from technical requirements through prototyping, validation, product readiness, and lifecycle improvement.
• Create, review, and maintain CAD models, engineering drawings, specifications, tolerances, BOM-related technical requirements, and engineering changes.
• Develop and build prototypes and coordinate rapid engineering iterations based on laboratory, field, and stakeholder feedback.
• Conduct technical design reviews and independently identify design risks, trade-offs, and opportunities for improvement.
• Coordinate mechanical, electrical, and system-level integration with relevant Engineering team members.
• Collaborate with manufacturing and OEM partners during early-stage prototype development and design iteration.
• Conduct detailed technical evaluations of new products and technologies.
• Research materials, technologies, manufacturing processes, and design approaches that can improve performance, reliability, COGS, manufacturability, or deployment readiness.

2. Validation & Product Readiness

• Develop and execute structured product-validation plans against defined technical and product requirements.
• Coordinate laboratory and field testing of new products and product improvements with country Operations teams.
• Analyze test results, identify technical risks and failure modes, and develop corrective engineering solutions.
• Translate validation findings into clear engineering actions and product-readiness decisions.
• Coordinate minimum-investment pilots and other controlled technical evaluations required before wider deployment.
• Research and assess applicable product standards, regulations, certification requirements, and safety requirements.
• Prepare technical validation reports and communicate findings, risks, and recommendations to Engineering and Product leadership.

3. Product Quality, Reliability & Lifecycle Engineering

• Translate validated product intent into requirements that can be consistently evaluated during production and deployment.
• Support the onboarding and continuous improvement of global product-quality protocols in collaboration with QA and country teams.
• Conduct structured root-cause analysis and support corrective engineering and CAPA activities.
• Support graduated issue resolution where technical problems exceed local aftersales capability.
• Use field evidence to drive lifecycle improvements to existing products.

4. Technical Product Analysis & Field Intelligence

• Analyze product usage, performance, reliability, and failure data to generate engineering insights and inform product-development priorities.
• Work with relevant DMRV/data functions to translate available product usage data into actionable technical insights.
• Coordinate periodic product-quality, field-test, and minimum-investment-pilot reporting.
• Translate field and customer evidence into clearly defined engineering problems and development opportunities.

5. OEM & Manufacturing Engineering Interface

• Act as a technical interface with OEMs and manufacturing teams during product development and improvement cycles.
• Review prototypes, samples, engineering changes, and production samples against approved technical requirements.
• Support DFM and pre-production readiness reviews.
• Investigate manufacturing-related product failures and coordinate appropriate corrective engineering.

6. Innovation Hub & Technical R&D

• Provide hands-on Product Engineering capacity within the Innovation Hub, including prototyping, testing, failure investigation, and design iteration.
• Support research-led development and rapid MVP validation of emerging technologies, materials, products, and technical concepts.
• Translate promising technical research into prototypes and validated technical assets that can progress into viable projects, partnerships, externally funded development, or further commercialization.
• Maintain appropriate technical documentation and evidence generated through Innovation Hub development activities.

7. Technical Documentation & Knowledge Management

• Maintain accurate and current product specifications, CAD, drawings, validation records, test reports, engineering changes, and technical decision records.
• Prepare technical documentation including product specifications, test protocols, technical reports, user/service documentation, and relevant technical sections of product manuals.
• Ensure product-development knowledge is retained internally and remains transferable across Engineering, country teams, and future team members.
• Support technical product training for internal teams, country operations, and external partners where required.

Requirements

1. Technical Execution 
   Strong practical ability to design, prototype, test, diagnose, iterate, and validate physical products with limited supervision.
2. Engineering Judgement
   Ability to operate with incomplete information, make sound technical trade-offs, identify risk, challenge assumptions constructively, and determine when escalation is necessary.
3. Technical Ownership
   Already operating beyond individual assigned tasks, with experience taking ownership of substantial product-development workstreams while remaining hands-on and coordinating technical delivery across disciplines.
4. Cross-Functional Communication
   Ability to translate technical issues, decisions, risks, and trade-offs clearly for Product, Operations, manufacturing partners, suppliers, and leadership, including their deployment and commercial implications.
5. Organizational & Leadership Potential
   Sufficient technical and organizational maturity to engage effectively with senior stakeholders and progressively take broader ownership of development workstreams, mentor other technical resources, and grow toward senior technical leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering (preferred), Mechatronics, Electrical/Electronic, Industrial, Manufacturing Engineering, Product Design Engineering, or a closely related technical field. Equivalent technical qualifications may be considered where supported by strong hands-on product-development experience.
• At least 5 years of relevant engineering experience in product development, product engineering, mechanical/electromechanical design, manufacturing engineering, or a closely related role involving the development of finished hardware products.
• Demonstrated experience taking substantial product-development workstreams from requirements or concept through design, prototyping, testing, validation, and product readiness, rather than working solely within a narrowly defined engineering task.
• Strong hands-on capability in CAD, engineering drawings, prototyping, design iteration, technical testing, and failure investigation, with the ability to independently translate engineering problems into practical solutions.
• Experience developing consumer, appliance, energy, electromechanical, or electronically integrated hardware products, preferably products intended for high-volume production and deployment in real-world operating environments.
• Experience working directly with OEMs, manufacturers, fabricators, or production teams on prototype development, DFM, engineering changes, sample evaluation, manufacturing problem-solving, and pre-production readiness.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct structured product validation and failure analysis, interpret test and field-performance data, identify root causes, and translate findings into corrective engineering actions and product improvements.
• Experience supporting products through field trials, pilot deployments, early-stage rollout, and lifecycle improvement, with an understanding of how real-world product behavior should feed back into Engineering.
• Ability to work effectively across mechanical, electrical/embedded, Product, Operations, QA, manufacturing, and technical aftersales interfaces, coordinating technical delivery where multiple disciplines contribute to the final product.
• Strong technical communication and documentation skills, with the ability to communicate engineering decisions, risks, trade-offs, test findings, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working across multi-site or multi-country product-development and deployment environments is highly desirable.
• Ability and willingness to travel internationally and to operational sites for OEM development, product validation, field investigations, manufacturing/pre-production reviews, and technical onboarding as required.
• Comfortable operating as a hands-on, field-oriented Product Engineer who can move between CAD and documentation, the workshop and prototype lab, manufacturing environments, and live field deployments while retaining end-to-end ownership of the technical problem.

• Technical Expertise 
  • Strong 3D CAD and engineering drawing capability, including assemblies, tolerancing, and design documentation.
  • Practical mechanical product design, prototyping, and fabrication experience.
  • Good understanding of DFM/DFA, materials, manufacturing processes, and COGS-conscious design.
  • Strong product testing, validation, failure analysis, and root-cause investigation skills.
  • Working knowledge of electromechanical systems integration, including sensors, electronics, wiring, and controls.
  • Experience with OEM development, prototype/sample evaluation, and pre-production readiness.
  • Ability to use engineering measurement, instrumentation, and technical data analysis to inform design decisions.
  • Working knowledge of product compliance, safety, technical documentation, and engineering change control.

Why Join Us? 

• Not your average 9-to-5
  
• Opportunity to do things in a new way
• Personal and Career Growth
• Create lasting impact