Senior Engineer-Validation

Caterpillar•Tucson, AZ

9d•Onsite

About The Position

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc. When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it. As a Senior Engineer - Validation at Caterpillar, you will play a key role in shaping the future of Hydraulic Mining Shovels (HMS) by ensuring our machines deliver world-class performance, durability, reliability, quality, and serviceability. In this highly collaborative role, you will lead and influence validation strategies and testing activities, working closely with teams at Tucson Proving Grounds (TPG), global engineering partners, and customers around the world. Your expertise will help bring innovative products to life, mitigate risk, and drive continuous improvement across Caterpillar's mining portfolio.

Requirements

Demonstrate experience in machine validation, durability, reliability, and quality processes for heavy equipment or complex engineered systems.
Knowledge of validation methodologies, risk assessment tools, and engineering processes used to evaluate product performance and ensure design requirements are met.
Strong ability to analyze test results, identify failure modes, assess technical risks, and develop data-driven solutions to improve product performance, reliability, and serviceability.
Skilled at making sound engineering decisions in complex and evolving situations.
Ability to communicate technical information clearly and effectively to engineers, product groups, validation teams, customers, and leadership.
Experience presenting validation status, risk assessments, and recommendations while fostering collaboration across global and cross-functional teams.
Understanding of new product development and continuous product improvement processes, including validation planning, product readiness assessments, and design reviews.
Experience supporting product development activities by ensuring validation requirements are aligned with performance, durability, and quality objectives.
Bachelor’s degree in an accredited Engineering curriculum.

Nice To Haves

Hydraulic Mining Shovel product experience.
Hydraulic system design and troubleshooting experience.
Experience validating off-highway equipment powered by diesel engines and/or AC motors.
Knowledge of Caterpillar processes (i.e., NPI, NTI, CPI, etc.).
Strong analytical skills and mechanical aptitude.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Experience working in a global engineering environment.
Ability to multitask and adjust to changing priorities as needs arise.
Prior off-highway machine design experience.

Responsibilities

Create HMS validation strategy and activity plan, collaboratively, with a product, systems, and global machine development groups (in some cases, lead that validation strategy/plan).
Collaborate with test and validation peers at Tucson Proving Grounds regarding HMS validation needs.
Build relationships and leverage corporate validation experts for support as needed.
Budget program validation costs based on development plans and collaboration with supporting organizations.
Drive usage of tools such as the Proactive Reliability Process, Design Verification Plan & Report’s (DVP&R), and Requirement Based Virtual Product Development to evaluate the effectiveness of the validation activity plan on critical failure modes, and direct activities to mitigate risk.
Share best practices with the design teams, using tools such as Machine Readiness Summary (MRS) and presentations from the best practitioners.
As validation needs become known for which there is no robust validation method, the validation engineer will collaborate with teams to assess the risk and develop a plan.
Participate in regular product design reviews.
Support validation deliverables throughout the NPI (New Product Introduction) program cycle.
Determine new engineering content percentage for NPI programs.
Prepare and present Machine Readiness Summary and Risk Assessment for NPI programs.
Collaborate with CPI (Continuous Product improvement) Black Belts for key CPI projects regarding validation requirements.
Maintain and regularly report out on product validation schedule and status to product leadership.
Maintain product group Obeya validation status.