Sr. Material Development Engineer

Overview

At Gates, we welcome challenges, celebrate hard work, and continually seek new talent to join our global company. Our Columbia, Missouri factory is looking for a Senior Materials Development Engineer.  Please review below to see if this might be the right opportunity for you.

This position is part of the Innovation Group in Gates; this group has primary responsibility for both applied research/engineering development and support of manufacturing operations.  The innovation group works to accomplish company business goals while demonstrating our corporate values.

This job is an important part of new product launches and protecting our raw material supply continuity to global operations.  The role may be a project lead or a project team member, making valuable contributions to successful completion of the project. The expectation is to concurrently work on multiple projects of moderate size and/or portions of major projects.

This position does not have a supervisory role; however, self-management and team leadership skills are important.  Key challenges to overcome are time management, communication and collaboration across the organization (technical, operations, commercial) to progress from raw materials to product validation.

The functions of this role are to assist in the development of new reinforcement materials for Gates’ belts and hoses and provide support for existing materials and products.  Primarily, this includes leading or supporting prototype and lab scale development trials, supporting production trials, and compiling and analyzing lab test data into reports and presentations.  Secondarily, this includes supporting daily operations technical issues, raw material supply continuity issues, and quality issues.  Focus areas include Rubber and Textile technologies.  An engineer in this position is expected to apply broad knowledge of principles and practices in materials science and manufacturing processes.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Design, process, and test reinforcement materials used in manufactured rubber goods (MRGs).
• Support and lead the development of new products to meet quality standards in the most cost efficient manner.
• Organize & follow lab and production trials, including coordinating support team (Quality, Operations, Lab, Continuous Improvement, etc.)
• Interpret test results based on underlying material principles 
• Collect and analyze information on new materials or new suppliers and work closely with suppliers to maintain competitive advantage. 
• Communicate with purchasing and key suppliers to anticipate and resolve raw material supply continuity issues.
• Investigate and resolve work-in-progress product or material problems.
• Recommend and implement improvements and/or modifications in products and/or materials.
• Write technical reports
• Analyze and interpret data
• Explain complex, difficult and/or sensitive information
• Develop & implement new or modified test methods

Keys to Success

• Experience with prototype and manufacturing processing equipment
• Proficiency in statistical design and analysis of experimental data
• Strong team player with co-workers, engineers, procurement, manufacturing and management
• Exceptional communication and technical documentation skills
• Able to solve complex problems/issues
• Strong project management skills and experience
• Ability to operate independently under general direction; plan, schedule and coordinate activities
• Ability to work with suppliers and customers
• Working knowledge of process development and engineering.
• Working knowledge of industry test methods is preferred
• Experienced with software such as Excel, PowerPoint, Word, databases

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. 

• Minimum 8  years’ experience in materials development or manufacturing
• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Polymer Science, Chemistry, or closely related field
• Master’s or PhD degree is preferred
• Required certifications/licenses: None
• Preferred certifications/licenses: Six Sigma, knowledge of IATF 16949, ACS Rubber Certifications
• Tools, software and other technical application experience/proficiencies desirable: Minitab, JMP, familiarity with Design of Experiments