Description

Boldly build what's next for you in your career at Northern Tool + Equipment with this exciting opportunity in our engineering department!

Here at Northern Tool our product development team is developing an amazing product assortment to fully equip our DIY and professional customers to ignite their fire and solve tricky challenges! This role is the heart of technical leadership for all our owned brands and product categories.  We take pride in our ability to design, develop, and build in-house private brands that exceed our customer expectations. 

We are looking for a successful Senior Project Engineer who thrives on leveraging their knowledge to lead us in establishing industry best practices, processes and market strategies as our talented engineering team rolls out exciting new products and makes our well known current products even better.

You can expect a flexible work environment in this position. The engineering team takes pride in their ability to "go where the work is", which means you may spend time in our World Headquarters in Burnsville, manufacturing facility in Faribault, and remote as needed.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF POSITION:

To drive product development and continuous improvement projects by leading cross functional teams through the PDP gate process.  To lead, direct and monitor design, technical architecture, and development of programs from concept to production to achieve program objectives within a specified time schedule. This includes generating and owning project deliverables including schedules, functional, and technical specifications, communication documents, and toll gate presentations. The Senior Project Engineer also leads the assigned engineering team and ensures and approves proper use of engineering tools and requirements.

MAJOR AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

1. Technically manages simultaneous programs that are 2-3 years in length with significant financial investment.
2. Technically leads NTE projects Owned Brands and other point of entry products using sound engineering principles from concept through production launch. Is accountable for engineering aspects of project deliverables.
3. Supports development of a reasonable project development schedule from concept to production implementation in line with overall business requirements.
4. Supports all design related component styling, purchasing, and manufacturing issues with emphasis on quality, reliability, timely delivery, and cost.
5. Benchmarks competitive design/processes/materials and function. Leads multi-discipline/multi-location project teams, at times directing the work of others.
6. Utilizes the product development process. Ensures that all requirements are clearly defined, documented, and achieved; manages programs through a gated process.
7. Communicates with cross functional team members on a regular basis to ensure each function is empowered to complete tasks on time and to a high standard of quality
8. Generates stage/gate documents with supporting documentation for each of the main gate phases.
9. Leads and approves the mechanical and electrical designs through design review tools such as DRBFM or DFMEA.
10. Supports the creation of manufacturing strategy through use of tools such as DFM and PFMEA.
11. Manages project costs and schedules working within a toll gate process.
12. Prepares written and oral reports for internal and external customers as well as management.
13. Interacts with customers, suppliers, consultants, and other industry professionals.
14. Provides technical support to other departments regarding all aspects of product design and product performance.
15. Coordinates, mentors, provides work direction, and approves work from other engineers and designers within the team.
16. Monitors resources and task assignments within the team; coordinates issue resolution with functional managers
17. Establishes projected part and tool costs and monitors the costs throughout the project.
18. Coordinates development, layout, testing, drafting, and fabrication to ensure project objectives are met per schedule.
19. Leads and participates in design reviews on projects to ensure adequate input and involvement from all engineering and functional groups.
20. Analyzes manufacturing and field problems. Recommends and implements solutions.
21. Provides technical support for promotional materials, sales and marketing information, and service publications
22. Keeps supervisor informed of important developments, potential problems and related information necessary for effective management. Coordinates and communicates plans and activities with others, as appropriate to ensure a coordinated work effort and team approach.
23. Performs other duties as apparent or assigned. 

QUALIFICATIONS REQUIREMENTS:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering or similar field required.
• At least five years’ experience in consumer product development.
• Must have demonstrated technical leadership in product development from concept to production through a product development process.
• Pro-E experience preferred.
• FEA experience and application of FEA in design preferred
• GD&T, FMEA, dimensional tolerance stack-ups experience and application preferred
• Experience in the application of project management tools and methodologies
• Strong leadership and interpersonal communication skills, including written and oral
• Possesses and applies a broad knowledge of principles, practices, and procedures to the completion of difficult technical problems and projects.
• Strong ability to manage by influence
• Demonstrates Northern Tool + Equipment’s 12 Core Competencies
• Quality and customer focused.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Frequently required to sit, use hands to handle objects and talk or hear.
• Frequent wrist and/or hand movement is required.
• Occasionally required to stand, walk and reach with hands and arms.
• Must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distant vision and the ability to adjust focus.