Product Procurement Engineer

Caterpillar Inc.•Clayton, NC

2d•$112,710 - $169,060•Onsite

About The Position

As a Product Procurement Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role within Caterpillar, representing the Category and managing part sourcing, development, and quality feedback loops across New Product Introduction (NPI), Continuous Product Improvement (CPI), and New Source Introduction (NSI). You’ll work closely with Engineering, Procurement and Supply Chain teams, while also engaging directly with suppliers to ensure alignment. The role ensures category strategy is clearly defined and executed, delivering parts with the right quality, total cost and timing to meet business and customer requirements.

Requirements

Effective Communications: Communicates clearly and confidently with suppliers and cross-functional stakeholders, influencing technical and commercial decisions to achieve alignment on quality, cost and delivery outcomes.
Strategic Sourcing: Develops and executes category and sourcing strategies, managing supplier agreements, sourcing pipelines and procurement programs to deliver competitive and sustainable outcomes.
Cost Benefit Analysis: Identifies and delivers cost, quality and efficiency improvements through structured analysis, supporting DFM/DFA and maximizing the use of supplier capability.
Data Driven Decision Making: Evaluates business proposals using data, cost analysis and risk assessment, ensuring decisions are robust and escalating risks appropriately to Category Leadership.

Responsibilities

Develop, implement and maintain category-specific KPIs, providing clear reporting and insights to Category and Program Leadership.
Collaborate with Design Control Engineering, Value Chain Engineering, Procurement, Quality and Supply Chain to define and execute global product supply strategies aligned to category objectives.
Drive Value Analysis / Value Engineering (VA/VE) through cost modelling, Design for Manufacturability (DFM), and effective utilization of supplier capability.
Contribute within a global team to develop and implement standardized processes across sourcing, quality improvement, cost management and capacity planning.
Manage quality feedback loops, ensuring lessons learned are captured, shared and consistently applied to improve supplier performance.
Represent category performance at NPI and APQP gateways, working with suppliers and cross-functional teams to resolve quality, cost and delivery issues and drive continuous improvement.
Works directly with suppliers to support part development, resolve quality and delivery issues, and ensure products meet specifications, escalating higher-risk concerns where required.
Make informed sourcing decisions by balancing cost, contractual terms, risk exposure and long-term value to protect quality, delivery and commercial outcomes.
Apply quality standards, governance and continuous improvement methods to drive consistent product quality and supplier performance.
Anticipates and incorporates external factors (regulatory, environmental, geopolitical) into sourcing decisions to enhance resilience and mitigate supply risk.