Applications Engineer

Rite-Hite•Dubuque, IA

About The Position

The Applications Engineer translates customer, sales, and product requirements into application designs, calculations, drawings, bills of material, cost estimates, and controlled releases. The role uses CAD, Product Data Management (PDM), and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, currently JD Edwards, throughout engineered-to-order (ETO) application review, release, and production support. The engineer develops working knowledge of Rite-Hite product features, options, applications, interfaces, and limitations across Doors, Barriers, Machine Guarding, DuctSox, Zoneworks, and Fan products. The position coordinates across Supply Chain, Operations, Quality, Sales, Product Management, and Development Engineering to deliver solutions that are manufacturable, supportable, and properly installed. The engineer reviews customer and site information, supports sales and other business partners with technical application guidance, and develops or revises designs and documentation. The role helps ensure that requirements, risks, drawings, bills of material, PDM approvals, ERP data, quality requirements, and release authorizations are complete. It also supports prototypes, pilots, and ETO production; resolves issues through documented changes and controlled re-release; estimates cost and engineering effort; and maintains traceable records. Travel to jobsites, suppliers, manufacturing locations, or customers may be required, including occasional overnight travel, up to 10%.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
Working knowledge of mechanical design, strength of materials, tolerancing, fabrication, assembly, design for manufacture, and structured problem solving.
Proficiency with at least one 2D or 3D CAD platform.
Curiosity and learning agility to understand multiple product families, recognize application limits, and coordinate custom design product release with Supply Chain, Operations, Manufacturing Engineering, and Quality.

Nice To Haves

Two or more years of applications engineering, mechanical design, manufacturing engineering, or product-release experience.
Experience with industrial products, fabricated assemblies, or electromechanical equipment.
Experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Revit, or other product-specific CAD platforms; PDM workflows; ERP systems, including JD Edwards; Salesforce; and Microsoft 365.

Responsibilities

Review customer specifications, plans, site surveys, codes, order information, and application requirements; identify missing information, product restrictions, technical risks, and required approvals.
Support sales representatives, machine integrators, architects, Business Development Managers, Product Managers, and Customer Support with product capabilities, application fit, plan and specification interpretation, and ETO layouts and concepts.
Develop new or revised designs using engineering principles, calculations, materials, components, tolerances, and product guidelines, while considering safety, quality, cost, availability, manufacturability, and serviceability.
Create and revise 2D drawings, 3D models, layouts, approval drawings, installation information, and manufacturing documentation using relevant CAD platforms and translate data between platforms when required.
Create and maintain bills of material and engineering data for new or revised JD Edwards items; verify descriptions, quantities, effectivity, and revisions with responsible business functions.
Follow the ETO order process, including requirements and risk review, design review, drawing and bill-of-material readiness, PDM approval, MRP data readiness, quality requirements, and release authorization.
Coordinate with Supply Chain, Operations, and Manufacturing Engineering on materials, supplier capability, tooling, cost, lead time, sourcing risk, fabrication, assembly, work instructions, inspection, packaging, installation, and production readiness.
Support prototypes, pilots, and ETO production; resolve design, supplier, manufacturing, quality, and installation issues through documented changes and controlled re-release.
Estimate product cost and engineering effort, and communicate assumptions, exclusions, technical risk, and lead-time impacts.
Escalate work beyond established authority to relevant engineering, testing, and product-support functions; participate in design, supply-chain-readiness, production, testing, and continuous-improvement reviews.
Maintain traceable requirements, decisions, correspondence, calculations, drawings, costs, approvals, and change records.
Provide timely, accurate technical application support and complete release packages suitable for procurement, manufacturing, inspection, installation, and support.
Protect design integrity and corporate knowledge through controlled PDM records and alignment of released product data with JD Edwards.
Reduce cost, rework, lead time, and corporate risk through complete requirements, early cross-functional involvement, design reuse, documented limitations, and disciplined release and change practices.
Travel to jobsites, suppliers, manufacturing locations, or customers as required, including occasional overnight travel, up to 10%.