Lead Engineer, Product Development (Motor Controls/Power Electronics)

Harbor Freight Tools is a national tool retailer with significant growth potential, seeking a Lead Engineer in Product Development focusing on Motor Controls and Power Electronics. The role involves project management, vendor selection, quality assurance, and collaboration across various teams to ensure product specifications and customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities:

• Project Management
• Driving Schedules: Ability to read schedules and to drive project tasks to timely completion with a sense of urgency. Able to identify and recommend actions that accelerate completion with acceptable risk
• Support Vendor Selection and Enhancement: Provide clear project specifications and assist global sourcing in assessment and selection of factories for development and manufacturing capabilities. Participate in audits and address issues through factory corrective actions
• Organization: Strong organizational ability with attention to detail. Optimizes work flow to improve efficiency
• Adaptation: Must possess sense of urgency, collaborative team style, and ability to quickly adapt to changes in priorities
• Defining Product Specifications: Utilize knowledge of market landscape, corporate objectives, and product needs to define and communicate clear expectations to vendors for quotation and development
• Quality Assurance: Upholds high standards of quality for each product to ensure customer satisfaction and long term reliability. Measures success by online customer reviews and returns %
• Product Testing: Supports testing group by preparing appropriate test methods, instructions, and plans. Proactively updates test protocols. Reviews reports, interacts with test team, and generates appropriate corrective action plans
• Completion of tasks: Ability to absorb, prioritize, and complete multiple parallel tasks. Works well under time constraints and can deliver on multiple advanced tasks in a fast-paced environment. Mindful of how completion affects others
• Inspections: Update and publish list of items to be inspected to ensure product inspections are focused on the most important items. Proactively works with overseas inspection team to identify inspection process improvement areas and create solutions to improve inspection quality
• Mature Product Support: Support complaint handling group in resolving product complaints by analyzing product and market comparisons. Read and respond to customer reviews directly and through FAQs. Review product and related literature to identify root causes and viable solutions. Drive corrective actions
• Individual Contribution: Actively completes assignments as an individual contributor to 25 or more projects with moderate complexity. Assists manager with tasks assigned to manager
• Teamwork: Ability to work collaboratively in a team setting with various departments and outside parties such as Global Sourcing, Merchant, Asia teams, and vendors. Understands how their work, and the way they work, affect others
• Visibility and Escalation to Leadership: Provides constant and timely updates on project status and systems improvements to manager, cross functional team, and leadership team using appropriate communication methods. Anticipates events and prepares leadership in advance
• Management Responsibilities: Models responsible behavior and coaches others in their work
• Decision Making: Works independently and exercises independent judgment and good decision-making skills. Solves project and system problems with little support. Leverages collaborative culture and escalations, understanding when and how to appropriately involve others
• Reliability: Consistently present, attentive and engaged in daily operations to effectively reach defined goals
• Safety Mindedness: Understand and be involved in workplace safety to ensure all employees follow safety rules and procedures

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical/Electrical/Industrial Engineering or Physical Science from an accredited university
• 7+ years of direct experience
• Must have basic written communication skills and convey messages in an effective manner
• Speak and listen to others in person, over the phone, and on video calls in English
• Must have clear oral communication skills and convey messages in concise, organized, and effective manner that is appropriate to the intended audience, including executive level
• Must have refined skills developing and presenting information in multimedia format to convey messages in concise, organized, and effective manner to intended audience
• Use keyboard and read from computer screen and reports
• Must be skilled in MS Office suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Project), CAD, web search, and e-mail
• Proficient in HFT specific programs - Kronos, ISS, TurnTo, etc
• Resolves problems using professional communication, technical skill, and appropriate sense of urgency
• Understanding of advanced mechanical systems and cost with demonstrated ability to develop mechanisms
• Understanding of advanced electronics and costs, with an aptitude to learn controls used in area of assignment
• Advanced knowledge of quality control systems used in product manufacturing
• Ability to apply, follow, and create appropriate formalized testing methods to prove reliability of products according to HFT standards
• Demonstrate proficiency to work with a wide range of equipment including electronic testing equipment, small motor dynamometer, AC/DC load banks, data acquisition systems, environmental chambers, hardness testers, and other lab tools
• Knowledge of UL, CSA, and other regulatory standards with application to product design
• Awareness of the competitive market and business environment for categories of responsibility and expertise
• Recognized understanding in one or more product categories and peripheral knowledge in adjacent categories
• Execute HFT response to market conditions and business environment within assigned categories
• Ability to stand, walk, sit for extended periods of time
• Ability to lift up to 50 lbs
• Ability to travel frequently within China to various supplier manufacturing sites