Supply Chain Resiliency Product Engineer - Leeds, AL

The Supply Chain Resiliency Product Engineer is responsible for driving engineering initiatives that improve product cost competitiveness, supply continuity, and manufacturing flexibility. This role will focus on material cost takeout, alternate sourcing, supplier qualification, material substitutions, and product design optimization.

Will work cross-functionally with Engineering, Supply Chain, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Quality, Product Management, and suppliers, this engineer will identify and execute opportunities to reduce product and material costs while maintaining or improving product performance, reliability, manufacturability, safety, and customer value.

The successful candidate will combine strong product-design fundamentals with commercial awareness and an understanding of manufacturing and supply-chain constraints. The role requires the ability to evaluate existing designs, challenge legacy specifications and sourcing assumptions, develop technically sound alternatives, and lead projects from concept through validation and production implementation.

Material Cost Reduction & Product Optimization

• Lead engineering projects focused on material cost takeout and product cost reduction.
• Perform detailed reviews of existing products, components, assemblies, materials, manufacturing processes, and specifications to identify cost-reduction opportunities.
• Evaluate alternative materials, manufacturing processes, tolerances, finishes, and component designs while maintaining required product performance.
• Partner with Product Management, Finance, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain to develop business cases and prioritize opportunities based on savings potential, technical feasibility, implementation effort, and risk.

Supply Chain Resiliency & Alternate Sourcing

• Lead engineering activities associated with alternate supplier and second-source qualification.
• Identify components with elevated supply-chain risk, including sole-source materials, long-lead-time components, supplier-specific designs, and geographically constrained supply.
• Evaluate supplier-proposed materials, components, processes, and design alternatives for technical equivalency.
• Develop engineering solutions that reduce dependency on single suppliers and improve sourcing flexibility.
• Review supplier drawings, material certifications, manufacturing capabilities, samples, and technical deviations.

Product Engineering & Design

• Develop, evaluate, and implement engineering changes to existing products and components.
• Create and revise engineering drawings, specifications, bills of material (BOMs), and technical documentation.
• Perform tolerance analysis, material selection, and mechanical/electrical design evaluation as required.
• Identify opportunities to standardize components, materials, hardware, and manufacturing processes across product families.
• Utilize engineering calculations, modeling, simulation, prototyping, and testing to validate proposed changes.
• Manage engineering changes through the applicable change-control and product-release processes.

Validation & Qualification

• Develop verification and validation plans for design changes, alternate materials, components, and supplier transitions.
• Establish validation requirements based on the technical and business risk associated with each proposed change.
• Coordinate prototype builds, laboratory testing, manufacturing trials, and supplier qualification activities.
• Analyze test results and document technical conclusions supporting product, component, material, or supplier approval.

Cross-Functional Project Leadership

• Manage multiple cost-reduction and supply-chain resiliency projects from opportunity identification through production implementation.
• Establish project scope, technical requirements, milestones, validation plans, risks, and implementation timing.
• Communicate project status, technical risks, projected cost savings, and implementation barriers to engineering and business leadership.
• Drive projects to completion and ensure approved savings opportunities are successfully implemented into production.

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, specifications, bills of material, and technical standards.
• Strong understanding of engineering fundamentals, manufacturing processes, materials, tolerances, and product design.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to evaluate engineering tradeoffs involving cost, performance, reliability, manufacturability, and supply-chain risk.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively with suppliers and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to manage multiple engineering projects and priorities simultaneously

Preferred

• 3+ years of experience in product engineering, design engineering, supplier engineering, or a related role.
• Experience with product cost reduction, material cost takeout, or VA/VE initiatives.
• Experience qualifying alternate suppliers or second-source components.
• Experience with supplier transitions, material substitutions, and manufacturing process changes.
• Experience performing tolerance analysis, DFMEA, root-cause analysis, and engineering validation.
• Experience with CAD, PLM/PDM, and engineering change-management systems.
• Experience working with ERP/MRP systems and product BOM structures.
• Experience evaluating manufactured components such as:
  
  
  
  • Castings and forgings
  • Machined components
  • Stampings and sheet metal
  • Copper and aluminum components
  • Plastic-injected molded components