Team Lead, Mechanical Design

Samuel, Son & Co.•Waterloo, ON

About The Position

As a Team Lead, Mechanical Design, you provide front-line leadership, coaching, workload visibility, and technical execution support for assigned designers. You help translate department priorities into clear day-to-day execution, ensuring technical issues, workload constraints, and support needs are visible early enough to keep design work moving with quality and confidence. This role combines three expectations: first-line people support, technical delivery leadership, and group-level workload visibility.

Requirements

Degree or Diploma in Mechanical, Mechatronic, Systems Design, Engineering Physics, Engineering Science, or related discipline
Significant experience in industrial automation and custom machine design
Strong technical capability in machine design, design reviews, integration support, and project execution
Experience working in project-based / ETO environments
Proficiency in SolidWorks, PDM, AutoCAD, and related engineering tools
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Ability to coach designers, inform performance and development discussions, support resource planning, and maintain visibility into workload, risk, and technical quality
Passion for leading and developing people

Responsibilities

Give designers clear priorities, expectations, and technical direction so assigned work moves with minimal confusion.
Communicate decisions, trade-offs, and risks clearly so project participants stay aligned.
Provide first-line leadership through regular 1:1s, workload visibility, coaching, and performance input to the Mechanical Design Manager.
Identify workload constraints, support needs, and capacity risks early enough to inform resourcing and priority decisions.
Own day-to-day technical execution for assigned mechanical design work, keeping scope, schedule, quality, safety, manufacturability, and customer requirements on track.
Resolve technical issues early and guide key design decisions from concept through integration and customer acceptance.
Partner with Applications Engineering, Manufacturing, Assembly, Integration, and customer-facing teams where technical clarity or execution confidence is needed.
Identify proposal, scope, readiness, and build risks early so downstream teams are not surprised.
Reinforce sound engineering judgment through design reviews, safety assessments, compliance awareness, and practical problem-solving.
Recommend improvements that strengthen design quality, efficiency, and delivery consistency.
Drive consistent use of design standards, review expectations, and technical practices across the assigned group.
Keep risks, assumptions, release concerns, capacity issues, and quality concerns visible early through disciplined reviews and escalation.
Mentor junior designers, new team members, and co-op students through practical coaching and review of real project work.
Identify capability gaps and development opportunities for discussion with the Mechanical Design Manager.
Act as Mechanical Design Lead (MDL) on appropriate projects when scope, risk, workload, and development opportunity make sense; the Team Lead role does not automatically own MDL responsibility, and MDL may also be assigned to capable senior, intermediate, or developing designers.
When acting as or supporting an MDL, clarify scope breakdown, release planning, review readiness, designer coordination, and FAT support needs.