Product Development Engineer

IKO Industries Ltd. is a market leader in the manufacturing of roofing and building materials. IKO is a Canadian owned and operated business with production facilities worldwide and has many years of unparalleled success in the roofing materials industry. Quality, integrity, and trustworthiness are the values that underlie this success, and we have built this company by hiring people who hold these values.

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Job Description The Product Development Engineer is a member of the R&D and Quality Department and is accountable for developing, commercializing, and continuously improving new and existing products and materials for residential and commercial applications. Working closely with Plant Operations, Corporate Engineering, Supply Chain, and Sales, the engineer delivers products that meet applicable codes and standards, customer requirements, internal quality expectations, manufacturing capabilities, and cost targets.

This role requires practical materials expertise and an understanding of how raw materials, formulations, and processing conditions influence product performance.

Job Responsibilities  Product Development and Improvement  Deliver new and improved products that meet defined performance, compliance, quality, cost, timing, and manufacturability requirements. Lead projects from concept and laboratory evaluation through plant trials, validation, commercialization, and post-launch review.
Improve existing products by optimizing materials, formulations, code-driven performance, consistency, manufacturability, and cost.
Ensure technical decisions are supported by reliable data, documented risks, and validated results.
Materials and Product Performance  Establish relationships among raw-material properties, formulations, manufacturing conditions, and finished-product performance.
Translate applicable codes, standards, certifications, customer specifications, and internal requirements into product-development and validation plans.
Qualify materials, suppliers, formulations, and technologies that improve product performance, quality, cost, or supply resilience.
Develop practical expertise in asphaltic materials and apply it to product and business priorities.
Plant and Quality Support  Partner with Plant Operations to deliver successful trials, product introductions, material changes, and production scale-up.
Resolve product, material, and production-quality issues through disciplined root-cause analysis and sustainable corrective actions.
Use production, laboratory, and quality data to reduce variation, improve consistency, and identify emerging risks.
Ensure material, formulation, supplier, equipment, and process changes are assessed and validated before implementation.
Maintain specifications, test methods, technical records, and manufacturing controls needed to support ongoing product compliance.
Project Delivery  Deliver assigned projects against agreed technical, timing, cost, and business objectives.
Establish measurable success criteria and communicate progress, risks, findings, and recommendations.
Coordinate cross-functional teams to remove barriers and achieve timely decisions.
Confirm that improvements deliver measurable and sustained business or operational value.
Qualifications  Graduate degree (M.A.Sc, M.Sc, PhD) in chemical engineering, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, Polymer Science, or a related technical field.
Experience in product development, materials, manufacturing engineering, process engineering, or product quality.
Practical understanding of relationships among materials, formulations, processes, and product performance.

Experience with laboratory testing, plant trials, data analysis, and technical problem-solving.
Experience interpreting product specifications, standardized test methods, codes, or compliance requirements.

Experience with statistical methods, Design of Experiments, Statistical Process Control, Lean Manufacturing, or Six Sigma is preferred.

Experience with asphalt, bitumen, polymers, coatings, composites, adhesives, roofing products, construction materials, or other formulated products is an asset.
Effective project management and cross-functional collaboration.
Clear written, verbal, and presentation communication.
Strong materials and technical foundation.
Ability to travel to manufacturing facilities as required.
Candidates with strong transferable materials experience are encouraged to apply, even if they do not have direct asphaltics experience.
Benefits…