Senior Engineering Manager

Trane Technologies•Grand Rapids, MI

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Engineering Manager, Site Design Engineering Leader, is responsible for overall engineering leadership at the Grand Rapids site, with direct accountability for both Design-to-Order Engineering and Sustaining Engineering functions. This role provides strategic and operational leadership across a diverse portfolio of engineered HVAC products and solutions, ensuring engineering execution aligns with business priorities, customer requirements, product quality expectations, and manufacturing needs. As the senior design engineering leader for the site, this individual will lead engineering teams responsible for custom product execution, ongoing product support, design changes, quality and reliability improvements, manufacturability enhancements, and lifecycle engineering performance. The role requires strong technical depth, people leadership capability, and the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders across Product Management, Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Service, and commercial teams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
10+ years of engineering experience in manufacturing, product development, HVAC, thermal systems, industrial equipment, or similar engineered-product environments.
5+ years of engineering leadership experience with direct responsibility for people leadership, team development, and business execution.
Demonstrated experience leading multiple engineering functions or a broad engineering scope, including areas such as design-to-order engineering, sustaining engineering, product support, or manufacturing support.
Strong experience with product lifecycle processes including design release, change management, validation, documentation control, production support, and cross-functional execution.

Responsibilities

Serve as the site design engineering leader for the Grand Rapids location, with overall responsibility for both Design-to-Order Engineering and Sustaining Engineering.
Lead, coach, and develop engineering managers, engineers, and technical team members to build a high-performing, accountable, and collaborative engineering organization.
Provide strategic leadership for custom/design-to-order engineering activities, ensuring customer-specific solutions are technically sound, manufacturable, cost-effective, and aligned with business objectives.
Oversee sustaining engineering activities including design changes, product improvements, cost reduction, reliability enhancement, quality improvement, obsolescence management, and production support.
Establish and drive engineering priorities, resource planning, organizational alignment, and workload balancing across the site engineering team.
Partner closely with Product Management, Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Service, and commercial teams to support product execution and business performance.
Ensure engineering outputs support safety, quality, compliance, serviceability, manufacturability, and lifecycle value.
Act as a key escalation point for technical, organizational, and execution-related issues affecting the site’s engineering portfolio.
Translate customer requirements, market needs, field issues, and operational constraints into actionable engineering direction and prioritized execution plans.
Champion engineering rigor in requirements management, design reviews, validation, release practices, documentation quality, and change control.
Drive continuous improvement in engineering processes, tools, standard work, and cross-functional collaboration.
Support site and business strategy through technical leadership, portfolio alignment, process ownership, and organizational capability building.
Influence and align engineering decisions with business goals related to growth, quality, delivery, cost, and customer satisfaction.
Promote knowledge sharing, succession planning, and leadership development across the engineering organization.
Represent site engineering in leadership discussions, customer interactions, audits, supplier collaboration, and cross-functional reviews as needed.
Provide overall leadership for the site design engineering organization, ensuring strong execution, technical rigor, and alignment with site priorities.
Build organizational capability through coaching, succession planning, leadership development, and strengthening technical depth across the team.
Drive engineering governance and process discipline in design reviews, validation, documentation, change management, and product release practices.
Establish effective site-level engineering operating mechanisms for prioritization, escalation, workload balancing, and cross-functional decision-making.
Lead complex technical and organizational issue resolution to maintain execution continuity and support site performance objectives.
Champion a culture of accountability, collaboration, problem-solving, and continuous improvement within the engineering organization.
Ensure the engineering team is positioned to support both current business needs and long-term site capability.