Technical Manager (Automotive HVAC)

Brightwing • Full-time • Detroit Metropolitan Area, US • $150k - $180k / year • 2d ago

The responsibility of this position is to provide customer-facing product design and technical interface support while managing our design partners to meet all program key deliverables. This support ranges from the pursuit of new business through design, development, testing, validation, and launch of our products into customer vehicle ensuring collaboration and accountability between the customers product design team and our internal or external design partners for all new product development, current production design changes and any other appropriate technical design support when required. The role will collaborate with cross-functional teams, use advanced CAD tools, apply root-cause analysis, and lead technical reviews to solve complex challenges and drive continuous improvement.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (but not limited to):

The specific responsibilities will include providing customer engineering interface, troubleshooting issues, supporting vehicle builds, supporting vehicle launch, and coordinating data with customer data systems. The tasks will change depending on the customer, product, and phase of development/launch.
Acts as the main liaison between customers and internal or external design engineering partners.
Tracks and manages all open product engineering tasks, tracks all customer design deliverables & milestones and creates/coordinates all tasks to meet these requirements.
Tracks, manages and leads communication for all customer deliverables related to DV/PV Test requirements, including test plans, timing plans and reaction plans.
Responsible for coordinating and support of troubleshooting, data collection, and triage of issues on test benches, vehicles, and/or manufacturing plants.
Technical support for analysis of warranty parts and provide field/dealership support as necessary.
Facilitate the customer change management process including accessing the customer systems, inputting technical requirements and/or responses, and tracking change approval.
Supports directed and non-directed suppliers with technical direction during launch.
Coordinates and monitors product design budgets, project costs including external engineering support, project staffing, timing and the like to ensure successful design, development and launch of products and processes.
Drive technical solutions and provide leadership to meet customer expectations
Develops and maintains strong relationships with customer product engineering teams, internal & external design partners and key component suppliers.
Responsible for providing product design subject matter expertise and technical leadership to the organization.
Works with top management to meet organizational objectives for all product engineering activities.
Ensures all established project delivery commitments are met.
Helps deliver the required product design inputs to Manufacturing & Controls Engineering teams on time to support internal launch activities.
Collaborates with internal and external stakeholders to improve design for manufacturability.
Review and approve APQP Documentation through PPAP.
Lead evaluation of new partners, products and technologies to help maintain a competitive edge in the industry.
Provide support and guidance to Manufacturing Engineering & Quality teams as required.

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE:

Bachelor's degree (B. A.) from four-year college or university; and 10 years of customer-facing or design engineering experience in the Automotive HVAC environment; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

OTHER SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

Experience in HVAC manufacturing.
Strong CAD & 2D Drawing Management.
Strong knowledge of OEM Product Design Processes & Systems
Knowledge and experience with HVAC products and technologies including knowledge of the target customer specific PDM (Product Data Management), PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), and databases.
Experience problem solving complex mechanical / electrical technical issues with products being integrated into vehicles.
Strong leadership skills, independent thinking, strong organizational and planning abilities and excellent analytical and problem-solving skills are essential.
Excellent with communicating and coordinating complex technical concepts both with internal and external stakeholders.
Strong knowledge of Root Cause Analysis, ICA & PCA development

OTHER QUALIFICATIONS:

Ability to complete administrative tasks related to supporting product development, testing, and release.
Strong working knowledge of complete APQP Process and supporting documents including DFMEA, DVP&R, Control Plans, PFMEA, Process Flows and PPAP.
Must be able to travel as required to support the customer and design & testing activities.
Willing to work in an office, manufacturing facility, customer or supplier site.