Application Engineering Manager

Lucas James Talent Partners • Elgin, IL

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Join HARTING! A leader in connectivity products and custom solutions. We are seeking an Application Engineering Manager (Hybrid; based in Elgin, Illinois) to join our growing team. The Senior Technical Application Consultant is an embedded, customer-facing technical expert dedicated to supporting a strategic hyperscale data center account. The role ensures timely, high-quality technical and application support for customers, distributors, and Sales, including deeper, customer-embedded design support. This leader develops the team, prioritizes resources, advances knowledge-transfer tools and systems, and ensures customer-service and department KPIs are met in alignment with HARTING strategic priorities. Periodic travel is required. HARTING aims to be a trusted advisor to HARTING customers and positions itself as the go-to source expert for industrial connectivity solutions. We partner directly with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Distribution partners for standard product, designed-in value-added products, and Product Development initiatives.

Requirements

• Excellent verbal and written communication, presentation, influencing, and relationship-building skills.
• Strong customer focus with demonstrated ability to manage service quality, escalations, competing priorities, and distributed technical resources.
• Strong leadership, coaching, organization, conflict-resolution, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to guide engineers in translating customer requirements into technically and commercially viable solutions.
• Ability to establish practical processes, performance measures, knowledge systems, and digital tools and drive sustained adoption.
• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or related technical discipline; equivalent directly related education and experience may be considered.
• 7+ years of relevant application engineering, engineering, product management, technical sales, or customer-facing technical experience, including demonstrated team leadership.
• Requires approximately 20-30% travel. Must have a valid passport, as travel may be international.

Nice To Haves

• Knowledge of industrial connectivity and relevant industrial markets is preferred.
• Experience leading distributed technical teams and supporting complex design-in or customer-embedded application programs is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Drives demand creation and design-in wins by ensuring accurate and timely application support, product and solution selection, BOM development, samples or prototypes, proposals, and customer presentations.
• Builds team capability for customer-embedded design support, including early engagement in requirements, architecture, validation, product integration, and complex strategic opportunities.
• Partners with Sales and Product Management to qualify and prioritize opportunities, coordinate technical resources, capture Voice of Customer, and advance design-in activity.
• Ensures consistently responsive, accurate, and high-quality support for current applications and serves as escalation leader for complex or critical customer issues.
• Establishes and manages KPIs and service expectations for responsiveness, closure, customer satisfaction, workload, opportunity support, training effectiveness, and tool adoption.
• Creates scalable knowledge-transfer systems and oversees technical playbooks, application guides, onboarding and training resources, selection aids, BOM tools, troubleshooting guidance, and reusable solutions.
• Advances the tools and processes used to receive, triage, assign, track, resolve, document, and report technical requests, including CRM, case-management, knowledge, digital, AI-enabled, and self-service tools.
• Partners with Product Management, Engineering, Operations, Customer Success, Marketing, and global HARTING teams on customer issues, product improvements, NPI, technical content, and training.
• Responsible for team planning, hiring, onboarding, goal setting, coaching, development, performance management, career progression, and succession planning.
• Establishes a regular operating cadence to review workload, commitments, opportunities, escalations, travel, skills, and capacity; reallocates resources as priorities change.
• Develops and retains a high-performing, customer-focused team and future technical leaders and fosters accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing.
• Acts as escalation point for team, customer, and cross-functional issues and drives team structure, tools, processes, and metrics for onsite, remote, and customer-embedded resources.

Benefits

• Base Salary and Bonus Percentage
• Eligible for a 5% discretionary annual bonus
• 21 days PTO (Paid Time Off) to start – quickly earn more PTO as you stick with us (36 days max)
• Medical, dental, and vision Insurance – several Blue Cross Blue Shield plan options to choose from
• Company-sponsored life, AD&D, and short- and long-term disability – at no cost to employee
• Paid parental leave
• Tuition reimbursement
• Fitness reimbursement
• Hybrid working policy
• 401(k) with a 4% dollar-for-dollar match – fully vested upon eligibility!

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager