Henry Gleason, Technical Project Manager @ iRobot

Henry Gleason is drawn to the physical world, building products with mass appeal to consumers who can share feedback and allow him to view the forest without getting stuck among the trees. Today Henry serves as a Technical Project Manager at Boston based robotics leader iRobot.

Henry grew up in Wareham just off the Cape. He has an older brother who’s a ceramic artist, a different flavor of builder. His Mom is an architect, working at the intersection of fine arts & physical goods. And his dad is a lifelong boat salesman, a passion once discovered he never left.

In high school, Henry had a physics professor who made science interesting & fun. He had always had an interest in math & science but, because you could see & feel physics in action like watching the acceleration of a dropped object, the tangible nature drew him in.

As a long time legacy, Henry followed his four grandparents (and more) to Tufts. On campus, he studied Mechanical Engineering and in particular loved Product Design. To him it’s the tangible execution of physics, bringing design to life and making things work how you want them to in the real world. 

Through engineering professor Joshua Wiesman, he found an internship at Waltham based medical device consulting firm Catapult Product Development that turned into a full time role. It was a 10-15 person company where Henry helped the team with quality, electrical, mechanical, and test engineering roles. He worked as a field technician delivering units to clients and did a TON of paperwork for their quality system. In the medical device field everything needs to be documented and cataloged, even down to the screws.

It would comfort you to know that anything (machine or part) that comes in contact with a human body is strictly regulated and has intense quality engineering requirements. Pretty understandable. Henry worked on custom products built for labs used by trained technicians,  like microfluidic devices isolating white blood cells from a sample or ultrasonic drug delivery devices. A mesmerizing topic at dinner parties.

It was the niche applicability of these devices that steered Henry toward consumer product design. He wanted to work on something that would be used in mass markets, where he could solicit and incorporate feedback more broadly.

Robotics leader iRobot was hiring and Henry was lucky enough to find the role through fellow Jumbo Whitney Crooks who had helped to teach one of his Intro to Robotics classes. He’s been at the company for 5+ years, working on driving advanced technology development for their leading consumer devices across their product suite. 

First, Henry worked at the company as a Test Engineer. He was assigned to test components and subsystems like the mobility system and bumper for the Brava M6, a robotic cleaning mop. A Test Lead would assign Henry tests to run to see how the system would interact in real life. Henry had to leverage creative problem solving and a strong attention to detail to run the tests, analyze the data, summarize it, and return it to the Test Lead so it could be packaged up for a wider audience and ultimately consumers. After the M6’s launch, he then pivoted to the Roomba team, working on a variety of their products.

In late 2020 Henry enrolled in a Masters Program at Tufts to study Engineering Management while at iRobot and began preparing for a move to Technical Project Manager, which in iRobot speak is a “Test Lead”. As a Test Lead, Henry was first assigned to work on the auto evac dock and standard dock for the Roomba J7+. Sitting on the core team, he listened to the mechanical & software teams design plans, how they were integrated, and helped build test plans to validate any new, unique, difficult, or different features as the product design roadmap progressed.

Throughout his time as a Test Lead he has worked across the product life cycle. Sandwiched by two new product introductions – the Roomba J7+ and Combo J9+ – he also worked in advanced development and on the Sustaining portfolio. He has worked on proof of concepts for the next generation Roombas to test ideas like “could they use one roller instead of two” or to prove out other technologies they might want to productize in the future. On the Sustaining team, Henry was charged with ensuring cost reductions and second-sourced components would remain invisible to the end user. For example, he designed bespoke test plans to ensure new plastic resins are just as functional or durable as the original, or that another vendor’s semiconductors could perform the same functions as the first component. 

Today Henry works as one of the handful of Test Leads across the company. Henry continues to design test plans and delegate out work to team members in the role he had previously served. He reviews test reports, summarizes & compiles data, and reports to the management team on what is working & what needs further iterations to dial in new features. He continues to focus on the end product and on creating the best possible experience for the consumer. 

Context Drives Better Results & End Speed
As a Technical Project Manager, Henry knows that communication and strategic thinking drive better test results.

He leans on individuals every day, as he was leaned on before, to deliver results and insights that can bring high performing products to market. Collaboration, subject matter expertise, and attention to detail are critical.

When Henry assigns a test to a member of his cross functional team, he aims to provide as much context as possible up front so they’re aligned on what they’re trying to get out of the given test so it doesn’t need to be repeated.

Whether trying to understand what “thresholds” a robot can cross between rooms or how sensitive a new bumper is, as the Project Manager Henry is always trying to think about the end user and what product would work *best* in a person’s home. As testers capture learnings, he aims to make sure each tester has the collective knowledge they need to conduct a good experiment that leverages prior learnings and captures new ones to drive product development forward. 

As Henry describes, “you can’t just expect someone to know what you’re thinking. If you want better tests, you need to give better information.” 

As a Test Lead who’s had to re-run a few tests himself, he knows that getting it right up front by providing the correct amount of detail is the key to maintaining speed of product design.

3 Career Insights / Learnings

Don’t Be Afraid of Feedback – “Feedback is how you progress in your career. Give people feedback and ask for feedback. In my Masters program I learned the SBID model – be specific, identify the behavior, describe the impact, and have a discussion about it to improve.”

Know Leadership Nuance – “It takes a lot of experimentation to figure out whether being an engineer or manager is the best path for you. And there’s no right path for everyone. I moved into management because I wanted to help align people, get them moving in the right direction, and motivate them instead of performing day to day engineering work.”

Find an Exciting Industry – “The biggest difference between my first two jobs was the size of the company and the industry. I loved the first company I worked for but wasn’t as energized by developing medical device products that lived in a lab. I found out at iRobot that I much preferred developing consumer devices that make it into the mass public”

As Henry progresses in his career, he aspires to continue developing as a leader to design industry leading products for mass audiences. He likes getting into the details so that he can be a better strategic thinker who manages product launches from conception to production. He hopes to continue leveling up his competitive benchmarking, corporate strategy, and business development skills to better understand all the various aspects to build a growing business.

If you’d like to learn more about Henry you can find him in the MetroWest of Boston with his young family, creating robotics products of the future at iRobot, or on LinkedIn. Thanks for sharing. We’re excited to see all the hardware you develop and push to production in the years ahead!