Product Engineering Manager

About us

We’re a class-leading manufacturer of custom-made rubber products for industries at the cutting-edge of technology such as aerospace, motorsport and high-tech manufacturers. We design and produce parts in technically demanding materials and configurations at our factory in Southampton. We’re great at what we do, we choose carefully who we do it for, and our teams are skilled and passionate about our work.

About you

You are an engineer with a passion for manufacturing. You are happy working in CAD to design tools and parts, but are equally at home on the factory floor, collaborating with manufacturing teams to improve existing processes or develop new ones.

Your new role

Reporting to the Operations Director, and with the support of two experienced, highly-skilled team members who specialise in FEA, CAD and tool design for polymer products. You will be responsible for leading the Technical Team at the heart of this engineering and manufacturing business. Our clients demand expertise in rubber engineering, and it is the Technical Team who ensure that we maintain the design skills, materials knowledge and production engineering know-how to stay at the top of our game. A key element of your day-to-day work will be centred around production engineering improvements and designing for manufacture, but you will also have the opportunity to work closely with the Senior Management Team who are responsible for the strategic development of the business and the execution and achievement of those goals.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• You and your team are central to ensuring that we develop class-leading solutions for clients and then manufacture them correctly first time, at the cost we estimated. Part of your role will be to assess jobs that fall outside of their planned costs and action preventative plans for future work.
• Your team are responsible for putting together job and project costs. An understanding of how the estimating process works is critical, and it would be pretty handy if you’ve worked with an ERP system on BOMs, routings and finite planning. Whilst your team will take care of most of the day-to-day work, you will take the lead on high-profile or high-value job costings.
• Our Sales Managers each have engineering backgrounds but may call on your support for clients where there is a high level of technical input required. This means you need to be comfortable with leading meetings, offering advice and understanding value.
• You’ll be top class at manufacturing process development and improvement.
• Project Management is a key part of this role. Whilst a high percentage of our client work is standard or repeatable, it often begins with a development project – and making this happen smoothly, on budget and within expectation is critical. The same is true of material developments, the purchasing of new equipment or a site move, where you will bring your project management skills into play.
• We are a manufacturing plant with a range of equipment and processes, often designing and making parts that are new to us but that are likely to repeat. We are looking for someone who can bring a focus on design for manufacture, and improve our production engineering processes to improve efficiencies, effectiveness and remove the frustrations of repeated problems.

What you’ll need to succeed

• The determination and resilience to take the lead and move projects forward in a busy engineering environment.
• Experience of team management in a technical setting, with a focus on development and the ability to bring together disparate skill sets.
• Confidence in a customer-facing role; an enjoyment of working collaboratively with clients as well as some commercial experience would be a bonus.
• A structured approach to problem solving. You’ll be working with internal and external customers who will be looking to you for technical support and guidance, so you will need to be able to communicate ideas to a broad audience whilst ensuring that the project goes to plan.
• A passion for using creative solutions to solve clients’ challenges. We have a reputation for succeeding on technically difficult work that competitors shy away from, and so you will need to use innovative approaches in terms of materials, product and process development to address this type of project.
• A qualification relevant to engineering. We’d prefer a mechanical engineering degree or equivalent– but if you think you have enough experience in the field, we’d certainly like to talk to you.

What you’ll get in return

The cold, hard facts look like this:

• £35k to 55k / annum – depending on your experience.
• 22 days annual leave per year + long service escalation

For the softer bit – the reason our team comes to work every day – take a look at our team page.

To apply or to find out more about the role, get in touch with Adam Hooper on adam.hooper@martins-rubber.co.uk

Please note, the job expiry date is estimated. If you are interested in this role, do not delay applying.