Manager, Applications Engineering - HS

SCHMALZ INC•Raleigh, NC

6d•Onsite

About The Position

This role involves leading the day-to-day operations of the Handling Systems Applications Engineering team. The primary goal is to ensure responsive, accurate, and technically sound support for customers, distributors, and the sales organization. The position requires managing team capacity, workload, and priorities, assigning engineers to projects, and establishing clear performance expectations and metrics. Key responsibilities include coaching, mentoring, recruiting, and developing team members, as well as standardizing application-review practices and quotation tools. The role also involves providing technical leadership on complex applications, resolving customer escalations, building relationships with internal and external stakeholders, and identifying opportunities for process improvement. Collaboration with international teams, product management, and leadership is essential, along with representing the company at industry events and delivering technical presentations.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, engineering technology or a related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and demonstrated technical experience.
Minimum of seven years of relevant experience in applications engineering, industrial automation, material handling, capital equipment or a closely related technical field.
Demonstrated people-leadership experience, including coaching, performance management, prioritization, delegation and employee development; prior direct management experience is strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate complex technical applications and guide engineers toward safe, practical and commercially viable solutions.
Strong customer-facing communication, presentation and conflict-resolution skills, with the professionalism to represent Schmalz in high-visibility and technically demanding situations.
Experience managing workload, capacity, priorities, performance metrics and cross-functional processes in a deadline-driven environment.
Strong judgment and decision-making skills, including the ability to balance customer urgency, technical risk, product capability and commercial objectives.
Ability to build trust and collaborate effectively with engineering, sales, operations, product management, senior leadership and international colleagues.
Strong organizational and time-management skills, with a customer-focused, adaptable and continuous-improvement mindset.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office and the ability to learn new business and engineering systems.
Ability to travel domestically approximately 15%, with occasional international travel as business needs require.

Nice To Haves

Experience with vacuum handling systems, ergonomic material handling, cranes, lifting devices or industrial automation.
Prior experience leading an Applications Engineering or comparable technical team.
Working knowledge of DraftSight and SolidWorks or comparable CAD software and the ability to review technical drawings and specifications.
Experience supporting distributors, outside sales teams, key accounts and custom-engineered solutions.
Experience delivering technical training and presentations to customers, distributors and sales organizations.
Experience collaborating with an international parent company or global engineering organization.

Responsibilities

Lead the day-to-day operations of the Handling Systems Applications Engineering team, ensuring responsive, accurate and technically sound support for customers, distributors and the sales organization.
Manage team capacity, workload and priorities; assign Applications Engineers to sales territories and projects based on business needs, technical complexity and available resources.
Establish clear expectations, performance goals and key performance indicators for the team, including quotation responsiveness, application quality, workload, rework and customer service.
Coach, mentor and develop team members through regular feedback, technical guidance, performance reviews, training plans and career development discussions.
Recruit, onboard and retain Applications Engineering talent while building team depth, succession capability and shared technical knowledge.
Develop and standardize application-review practices, quotation tools, templates, documentation and best practices to improve quality, consistency and efficiency.
Provide technical leadership and engineering judgment on complex, high-risk, semi-custom and custom customer applications, including review of proposed solutions when appropriate.
Establish clear prioritization and escalation processes, and serve as the primary escalation point for application, capacity, quality and customer-support issues.
Resolve customer complaints and technical escalations by coordinating investigation, evaluating potential resolutions, making recommendations to leadership and communicating professionally with the customer through resolution.
Build strong working relationships with Regional Sales Managers, Sales Engineers, Key Account Managers, distributors and selected strategic customers.
Partner closely with Outside Sales, Inside Sales, Product Management, Design Engineering and Project Management to ensure complete technical and commercial handoffs and smooth execution of customer projects.
Identify recurring process, product and quality issues that extend beyond the department; lead cross-functional efforts to determine root causes and implement sustainable improvements.
Communicate team capacity, priorities, risks, performance and resource needs clearly to leadership and affected stakeholders.
Coordinate with the parent company in Germany on technical applications, products, processes, training and issue resolution.
Provide market, product and competitive feedback to Product Management and company leadership.
Lead team meetings related to workload and capacity, interdepartmental coordination, quality, technical best practices and continuous improvement.
Develop and deliver professional technical presentations and training for national sales meetings, distributors, customers and internal teams as needed.
Represent Schmalz at trade shows, conferences, industry events and customer meetings as required.
Maintain the work location, travel and in-office presence necessary to lead the team and support customers effectively, consistent with company policy.
Perform other duties as assigned.