Customer Engineering Manager

Overview:

The Customer Engineering Manager (CEM) will own global product engineering for a customer base. In this role, the senior CEM will orchestrate successful engineering customer interfaces and will be the escalation path for the customer.

With their global cross-functional team, he / she will be responsible for planning, managing, and completing the engineering development. The team consists of core engineering groups in NA and China and customer interface teams in Japan.

This position will drive world-class engineering development to meet customer deliverables and prototype deliveries while managing the team to adhere to high quality processes / standards that ensure zero customer defects.

Responsibilities:

Manage customer interface and direct customer communication strategy with Japan OEMs in Japan, US, and EU. Ensure assignments from Japan OEMs are well understood, distributed to core teams.

• Build and manage customer relationships in Japan, US, EU, and China.
• Work with customer interface teams to manage issues
• Represent product engineering team in new business opportunities by interfacing with core team /customer / sales. Drive business case inputs and product engineering engagement on new technologies.
• Serve as internal expert on Japan OEM development processes
• Analyze and negotiate program schedules with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure product costing targets are achieved for each product. Maintain records of BOM costs compared to targets; escalate within organization when targets are not achieved. Ensure design actions are implemented to recover any cost variance in BOM cost target.
• Ensure adherence to engineering best practices / processes and facilitate creation of new best practices as appropriate
• Own and maintain the resource budget and cost of external resources. Ensure engineering resources are hired and qualified to meet the customer requirements. This includes resources in NA, EU, China, and Japan.
• Ensure engineering teams have equipment and facilities needed to meet customer requirements. This includes budget as well as acquisition.
• Back up engineering colleagues in Japan Office and program management team as appropriate.
• Oversee decisions regarding product content, budget and timing to ensure the product is on-time, on-schedule, on-quality, and meets all customer acceptance criteria (Performance and Features).
• Manage product risk proactively, identify engineering risks and coordinate meetings with the PM and multi-discipline functions to address risks before they become issues.
• Evaluate engineering processes and metrics to track and measure engineering success. Update processes where needed to address customer-specific requirements.
• Be the initial engineering escalation point for both internal and external stakeholders to ensure flawless development execution
• Ensure customer requirements are met with the product designed. Manage customer interface teams to clarify requirements when needed

Requirements

• Bachelors in Engineering, Masters preferred
• 7+ years related technical experience
• 2+ years in engineering leadership or technical program management
• Proficient in Japanese language
• Able to communicate in English (spoken and written)
• Experience as a supplier to Japanese carmakers
• Experience managing global teams
• Experience in consulting and/or client-facing role is preferred
• Must have general knowledge of automotive engineering.
• Must be able to articulate vision and influence decision making outcomes with internal stakeholders, external suppliers, and the customer.
• Proven and effective communication, analytical, judgment, initiative and execution skills