Technical Manager
About The Position
Kaiser Aluminum is seeking a metallurgy-focused Technical Manager for its Bellwood, Virginia facility. This onsite role oversees the integrated process for converting cast heat-treatable aluminum billet into high-strength automotive tubing, ensuring alignment among process history, microstructure, dimensions, and performance. The manager leads a small technical team, resolves multistage metallurgical problems, develops plant expertise, and drives manufacturing development, design, implementation, and execution. Serving as the facility’s technical authority for seamless tube manufacturing and product knowledge, the role supports production, customers, suppliers, and quality systems, ensures compliance with industry specifications, and fosters cross-department collaboration to implement process changes. The role owns thermal and mechanical processing, product conformity and disposition, heat-treat and thermal-process controls, technical support for customers and suppliers, talent development, and continuous improvement. The successful candidate will be highly knowledgeable in heat-treatment requirements and pyrometry controls. The position is onsite in Bellwood, Virginia. Kaiser Aluminum cannot provide visa sponsorship for this role, now or in the future.
Requirements
- Bachelor of Science in Engineering; Metallurgical or Chemical Engineering is preferred.
- Minimum of 3+ years of experience with labs and metallurgists, and 5+ years of metallurgy/process engineering experience.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office products, including Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and OneDrive, and other PC-based software programs.
- Ability to communicate professionally about technical issues with people inside and outside the organization at all organizational levels.
- Ability to manage personnel from engineers to operators within the department and advise or coach personnel across the facility.
- Familiarity with Lean Six Sigma concepts and product/process quality systems techniques.
- Strong knowledge of heat-treatment requirements and pyrometry controls.
Nice To Haves
- 8–15 years of experience in metal processing and manufacturing, heat treatment, automotive quality systems, a metallurgical laboratory, or process engineering.
- Experience or skills in seamless tube manufacturing.
- Experience or skills in metallography.
- Experience or skills in mechanical property testing.
- Experience or skills with automotive and general industry material specifications.
- Experience or skills in root-cause analysis.
- Experience or skills in Design of Experiments.
- Experience or skills in statistical process control.
- Experience with Minitab or other statistical software.
- Experience or skills with calibration systems.
- Experience or skills in heat-treat furnace compliance.
Responsibilities
- Own thermal and mechanical processing for seamless aluminum tubing.
- Maintain compliance with AIAG, customer, and industry requirements.
- Review press recipes, draw plans, heat-treatment practices, and manufacturing methods.
- Evaluate the technical feasibility of new products and customer requirements.
- Determine product conformity or nonconformity and approve product dispositions.
- Support testing programs and calibration systems.
- Investigate failures and implement corrective actions.
- Sign customer certifications.
- Manage heat-treat and thermal-process controls, including Thermal Uniformity Surveys (TUS), System Accuracy Tests (SAT), and Thermal Instrument Calibration (TIC).
- Perform or support supplier audits and evaluate supplier deviations.
- Lead customer complaint investigations and provide technical support during customer visits and problem-solving activities.
- Mentor Process Engineers; train operators and technical personnel; and conduct competency evaluations.
- Influence quality and process improvements across the facility and coordinate process improvements with Operations and Maintenance.
- Lead root-cause investigations and support RCCA activities.
- Analyze scrap, complaints, and audit findings.
- Apply Lean Six Sigma, DOE, SPC, and statistical analysis techniques.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
