Gillig LLC - Senior Manager of Customer Engineering

Senior Manager of Customer Engineering

Job Description:

• Our engineering organization is comprised of three primary departments:
  Current Product Engineering (CPE), New Product Engineering (NPE) and, Product Validation.
• There are two groups within CPE, Customer Engineering and Sustaining Engineering.
• The mission of the Customer Engineering group is to define robust fleet-specific customization required for each of our customers' operational needs.
• Customer Engineering has technical responsibility from the initial bid through vehicle delivery, encompassing bid team support, translation of requested features into parts and functionality, design & release of components/installations, validation support, and implementation into production.
• The Senior Manager of Customer Engineering is the key leader for the design of customer-specific variants of GILLIG's current production bus models.
• This position is responsible for the overall engineering required to deliver safe, robust, serviceable, and customized transit buses to our established and growing customer base.
• In this role, you will lead a multi-disciplinary team of engineers and Bill of Material (BOM) management personnel that evaluates unique customer requirements and provides designs that meet these requirements.
• Designs are typically adapted from existing product or precedence, however, may also necessitate specific clean-sheet design, test, and validation.
• Ongoing collaboration with internal engineering managers, supervisors, and individual contributors as well as external sales, supply chain, and manufacturing partners will be key to the success of this role.
• This position reports to the Director of Current Product Engineering, located at our head office and manufacturing plant in Livermore, CA.

Responsibilities:

• As our current product evolves and new sales orders flow into Customer Engineering, you will have the opportunity to experience the unique engineering challenges and characteristics of the heavy-duty transit bus industry, partner with peers, try new ideas, mentor others, and lead a multi-disciplinary engineering team to perform the following:
• Manage all engineering efforts beginning with the customer bid and carrying through post-delivery inspection of the bus
• Proactively engage Sales, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Quality Assurance, and key vendors to establish and execute on unique customer requirements
• Ensures all system and subsystem designs meet all applicable federal and state regulations and safety guidelines
• Coordinate the on-time and on-budget design, development and release of new systems/subsystems and new features to existing systems
• Work with GILLIG Leadership in developing the strategies, plans of action, and priorities for the engineering design team. Collaboratively assist in budget creation
• Create an atmosphere of driven design excellence while assuring maximum product safety, manufacturability, and cost effectiveness
• Critical contributor and supporter to the product road mapping and the development of engineering processes & tools
• Provide regular status updates to the Director or Executive members on design, integration, test and validation results
• Manage both internal and contracted 3rd party engineering resources
• Develop key relationships with both internal teams and external suppliers, using creativity and teamwork to solve problems in the most efficient way possible
• Contribute to the evolution and implementation of design tools such as Siemens Teamcenter, NX, and Zuken E3
• Oversees hiring, training, performance management, and provides leadership and coaching to ensure well-trained, motivated, and goal-oriented workforce

Qualification:

• BSEE or BSME required, MS preferred
• 15+ years of progressive engineering experience
• 7+ years of experience managing small to mid-sized (20+) design engineering staff
• Proven technical and leadership responsibility in automotive, on/off highway, or transportation equipment
• Demonstrated experience leading a multi-disciplinary environment with a proven track record in strategic engineering leadership delivering effective engineering strategies, policies, processes and systems
• Ability to manage multiple complex projects in a fast paced, high growth and changing environment
• Solid analytical skills and solution-driven thinking collects and researches data; uses intuition and experience to complement data. Makes good decisions based upon a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience and judgment
• Able to carry out and coordinate a cross-functional design review at an advanced level and in a wide range of work situations without guidance
• Proven ability to resolve coincident requirements such as quality, cost-reduction, customer preference, manufacturability and time-to-market
• Working knowledge of heavy-duty vehicle industry standards, regulations, and guidelines such as FMVSS, ADA, APTA Bus Procurement Guidelines, SAE HD vehicle standards, NFPA, and NEC
• Prior experience using mechanical CAD packages such as CREO, CATIA, or NX.
• PLM system…