Engineering Manager

Power Engineering And Mfg Ltd•Waterloo, IA

4d•$80,000 - $100,000

About The Position

Power Engineering & Manufacturing, Ltd. (PEM), a custom industrial gearbox manufacturer, is seeking an Engineering Manager who combines mechanical engineering knowledge, technical team leadership, and the ability to develop business through customer relationships and engineered solutions. A primary focus is identifying and advancing opportunities where PEM’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities can solve customer problems. The Engineering Manager engages customers directly, develops an understanding of their equipment and business needs, identifies opportunities, and coordinates engineering resources to develop and present solutions. The role leads the Engineering Department’s people, workload, priorities, and performance. Working with Sales, Operations, Quality, Purchasing, and executive leadership, the Engineering Manager balances proactive business development with timely support for quotations, existing orders, manufacturing, and technical issues. This is primarily a leadership and customer-development role. The Principal Engineer provides specialized technical leadership, including design approval, verification and validation, engineering standards, and technical development of new-business quotations. The Engineering Manager ensures these responsibilities are appropriately resourced and performed effectively and remains accountable for the department’s overall results. Direct design work may be required when workload, capability, and project commitments warrant it.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a closely related technical field, supported by a mechanical engineering background.
Practical experience with mechanical design and manufacturing.
Demonstrated experience leading, managing, and developing technical teams.
Demonstrated ability to identify customer opportunities, communicate the value of engineered solutions, and follow through to win new business.
Interpersonal confidence and initiative to start customer conversations, request meetings, develop relationships, and ask for additional opportunities.
Sound business judgment and the ability to connect technical solutions with customer value and PEM’s business objectives.
Proven ability to prioritize, delegate, organize work, follow up, and hold others accountable.
Strong communication, decision-making, and problem-solving skills, including the ability to explain technical matters to technical and nontechnical audiences.
An independent, accountable working style, with the ability to identify next steps and move work forward without continual direction.
Comfort managing competing demands and making thoughtful tradeoffs in a dynamic manufacturing environment.
Ability to work in both office and manufacturing environments.
Ability to wear required personal protective equipment, including safety glasses and appropriate footwear.
Frequent sitting, standing, and walking, with moderate lifting and handling associated with normal engineering and shop interaction.
Ability to travel occasionally to customer locations.

Nice To Haves

Experience working across Engineering, Sales, Operations, and Quality.
Experience in applications engineering, technical sales, or customer-facing engineering involving the development of engineered solutions.

Responsibilities

Lead engineered-solution business development for priority accounts by initiating customer contact, building relationships, and pursuing opportunities for profitable, repeatable business.
Understand customers’ equipment, operating challenges, business objectives, and decision-makers; engage early to shape requirements and solutions before formal requests for quotation.
Research and test ideas about customer needs and possible solutions, distinguish assumptions from validated problems, and focus engineering effort on opportunities with clear customer value and a strong fit for PEM.
Direct applications engineering and other technical resources to develop solutions; work with Sales and the Principal Engineer to communicate value, develop quotations, and advance opportunities through customer decisions and, where applicable, prototype evaluation and production.
Apply PEM’s Account Focus Initiative to understand selected accounts, develop relationships, and turn validated customer needs into long-term business.
Maintain current account and opportunity information in PEM’s shared systems, including Salesforce, with supporting evidence, decisions, next actions, owners, and due dates.
Protect time for proactive customer development, make competing demands and resource tradeoffs explicit, and escalate conflicts requiring leadership decisions.
Lead, coach, and hold engineering employees accountable for clear responsibilities, professional conduct, commitments, and results.
Conduct performance reviews, provide timely feedback, and address performance concerns directly and professionally.
Develop onboarding, training, mentoring, and succession plans; coordinate technical instruction through the Principal Engineer and other qualified team members and follow up on employee development.
Participate in interviewing, hiring, onboarding, disciplinary action, and termination decisions as required.
Build a respectful environment where employees can ask questions, propose ideas, challenge assumptions, and engage in constructive technical discussion.
Encourage independent problem-solving and learning while maintaining clear ownership, sound engineering judgment, and accountability.
Own engineering workload planning, scheduling, assignments, and capacity management across customer development, pre-quotation work, order-related design, and ongoing operational support.
Establish realistic priorities and due dates, monitor progress, and address obstacles before they jeopardize commitments.
Balance strategic account development with engineering support for existing customers, manufacturing, and quality needs.
Use PEM’s planning and workflow systems to maintain visibility of assignments, capacity, deadlines, and handoffs.
Make resource tradeoffs explicit, resolve conflicts within departmental authority, and escalate issues requiring broader business decisions.
Ensure the Principal Engineer and Design Engineers have clear responsibilities, appropriate resources, and effective review and escalation practices.
Oversee the Principal Engineer’s execution of design approval, verification and validation, engineering standards, and technical quotation development.
Maintain engineering rigor and documentation discipline as work moves from customer requirements and proposed solutions into detailed design and manufacturing.
Establish and track department objectives aligned with PEM’s business goals.
Keep the President & CEO informed of engineering performance, customer-development progress, capacity constraints, technical risks, staffing needs, and employee development.
Take ownership of engineering outcomes, address problems directly, and follow issues through resolution.
Work closely with Sales, Operations, Quality, Purchasing, and executive leadership to align customer needs, engineering priorities, manufacturing requirements, and delivery commitments.
Provide timely, proactive engineering support and communicate scope, progress, risks, and constraints clearly.
Participate in leadership meetings, planning discussions, customer meetings, and execution reviews as needed.
Ensure customer commitments and internal handoffs reflect a shared understanding of requirements, responsibilities, and next steps.
Improve engineering practices related to design integrity, scheduling, execution, and documentation.
Identify recurring bottlenecks and inefficiencies, use evidence to guide decisions, and standardize work where it improves consistency and throughput.
Ensure engineering activities comply with PEM’s Quality Management System.