Design Manager - Engineering

Location: Commutable from; Bath, Cardiff, Taunton, Frome, Gloucester, Bristol, Chippenham, Swindon, Cheltenham.

Industry: Manufacturing

Package: c£75,000 + benefits

If the last few years have taught us anything, it s to hold dear to what s important and for us to reflect, reimagine and realign our priorities

Technology has advanced, and continues to advance, at a rate of knots.

Robotic lawnmowers that merrily go about their business outside the home while the jumped-up vacuum plods around the inside, listening to the voice commands being bellowed into the home hub whilst the connected heating system regulates the air temperature.

To name but a few things.

Thing is, as much as those advances pinch a few minutes back here and there, they don t really create lifelong memories with those who we care about most, do they?

For some, operating in businesses that solely focus on advancing the already advanced technology seems to be the crowning glory; but you d prefer to be part of a bigger sense of purpose something that really did create memories and feed into peoples reimagined priorities, through the products you design, develop and produce.

Overview of the position.

Reporting to a Board Director, you will be responsible for leading the Design Engineering function, from concept design, through to introduction into production.

You will lead a team of around 15 Engineers across the product range. You will be responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining design engineering best practices, tools and systems.

You will manage the communication of engineering subjects and the interaction of key stakeholders, ensuring effective planning, resourcing and achievement of goals.

Key Responsibilities.

Given you re likely to want to get into the detail of things, let s drill into the specifics of what you ll be required to do

• End to end responsibility for the design engineering elements of the product lifecycle, to include: reviewing customer feedback, contributing to the concept and advanced design activities, detailed design drawing, prototype support, BOM creation and management, compliance adherence.
• Responsible for design engineering strategy, evaluating data both internally and externally to make relevant suggestions and improvements.
• Design for manufacture of all products, acting as key point of contact for Operations with new and existing products.
• Lead and manage a multidiscipline team and being the main escalation point for critical issues and link to Board of Directors.
• Budgetary responsibility for both function and project delivery.
• Lead on communicating with all key stakeholders, both internally and externally, to ensure brand values and high levels of quality are maintained.
• Solve engineering issues arising through any stage of the product lifecycle.
• Drive continuous improvement across the function, reviewing, analysing and consistently improving internal processes, manufacturing methods, materials and tools.

You, and your background.

Well, it s quite clear that you need to be a seasoned Design Engineering professional. You have a breadth of manufacturing experience, ideally with a degree of complexity. You re a modern-day Leader, with high levels of emotional intelligence who is comfortable engaging across the full spectrum of the business and have a track record of developing and nurturing teams.

You can take a top-level mandate, visualise what needs to be done, turn ideas into reality and effectively communicate this message across your team. Which, of course, is the start; your leadership expertise then comes into play as you re able to strike the balance between giving autonomy, whilst holding people to account.

You ll need an appetite too, this business is hungry for success and despite being well positioned in the market, it still has the desire to grow.

What next?

If you feel this is a challenge you d like to explore further, then we d like to hear from you so get in touch by sending us your CV. If you haven t got a CV don t worry, we can help with that too. Also, each applicant will get a response, even if it s not the one you had hoped for.

We look forward to hearing from you.