Kauffman Engineering is seeking a highly strategic and hands-on leader to build and scale the product engineering capability across the full lifecycle from customer technical requirements and RFQ support through New Product Introduction (NPI), APQP, PPAP, and launch readiness.

This role provides strategic and operational leadership for Quoting, New Product Launch and other related product and manufacturing engineering activities such as ECN’s and the like. This leadership role ensures engineering execution is disciplined, scalable, and aligned with operational readiness. The Director of Product Engineering plays a critical role in reducing execution risk to NPI programs, improving launch success (Accuracy, Cost, Quality, Speed, Customer Experience), and ensuring the company can support growth without compromising quality, delivery, or margin.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Quoting Engineering

- Ensure technical feasibility, cost assumptions, risks, and manufacturability considerations are incorporated into all quotes.
- Lead a cross-functional team to improve the speed and accuracy of the quoting process through process improvement and technology adoption.
- Ensure accurate engineering input into cost models, BOM assumptions, labor estimates, and tooling requirements.
- Challenge quoting assumptions to identify cost and improvement opportunities in Operations and the Supply Chain.
- Maintain a current view of the capabilities and capacity of each manufacturing site to make informed decisions when allocating quotes and programs.
- Establish a formal feedback loop that brings production and launch performance data back into quoting standards and assumptions.

Product Engineering

- Lead all New Product Introduction (NPI) engineering activities across all plants, including the onboarding of new customers and programs.
- Own NPI on-time delivery (samples, PPAP submissions, and first production run) and program introduction lead time, leading cross-functional teams to build a predictable, fast, and reliable launch process.
- Ensure NPI teams fully execute APQP activities across all phases, including PPAP readiness and launch execution.
- Lead continuous improvement projects that apply a lean,



end-to-end approach from quoting through NPI, improving safety, speed to market, quality, delivery, and cost.
- Manage NPI timelines, resource planning (including equipment capacity, tooling, and other resources), and execution to ensure on-time, on-budget launches.
- Review and present NPI status, risks, and readiness to senior management on a regular cadence.
- Drive consistent launch governance, gate reviews, and escalation processes across sites, including confirming that initial production orders are manufacturable

Process Standardization & Systems Development

- Develop, implement, and maintain standardized engineering processes.
- Reduce reliance on tribal knowledge by establishing repeatable workflows, documentation standards, and control points.
- Improve consistency and quality of engineering outputs across plants and teams.
- Identify and mitigate technical and execution risks early in the product lifecycle.
- Evaluate and adopt better engineering methodologies and tools, and strengthen cross‑functional coordination.

Plant Integration & Cross‑Functional Collaboration

- Act as a key engineering partner to plant leadership to support execution, troubleshooting, and readiness of new program launches.
- Drive alignment between engineering and operations to ensure manufacturability, capacity readiness, and process capability as part of the launch hand-off to the manufacturing sites.
- Support plant teams during launches, ramp‑ups, and significant engineering changes.
- Collaborate with Quality, Supply Chain, Maintenance, and Operations to ensure integrated execution.
- Lead engineering CAPEX planning for new programs and long‑term capacity needs.

Talent Leadership & Capability Building

- Assess current engineering organization structure, skills, and capacity.




- Develop and execute plans to upgrade engineering capability through hiring, development, and role clarity.
- Lead, coach, and develop the engineering team, setting clear expectations and holding team members accountable for results.
- Build a future‑state product engineering organization capable of supporting multiple concurrent launches.
- Promote a culture of accountability, discipline, and continuous improvement.

Education and Experience:

- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Industrial, Mechanical, Electrical, or related discipline); advanced degree a plus.
- Minimum of 7 years of engineering experience in manufacturing or industrial environments.
- Demonstrated engineering experience in the design and manufacture of wire harness components in a high-mix, low-volume environment.
- Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams and managing engineering functions, preferably across multiple sites.
- Proven experience with APQP, PPAP, and launch execution in production environments.
- Strong knowledge of Core Tools (APQP, PPAP, FMEA, SPC, MSA).
- Experience driving engineering standardization and process improvement.
- Understanding of material and labor costing, manufacturability, and cost drivers.
- Project management and cross‑functional leadership experience.
- Familiarity with Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement, and Six Sigma methodologies preferred.
- Strong communication, organizational, and problem‑solving skills.

Work Environment:

- This is an On-Site position at our Reynosa, MX facility.
- Ability and willingness to travel to U.S. and Mexico manufacturing locations (approximately 25–40%) to provide on-site plant support as business needs require.

Job Type: Full-time

Application Question(s):

- Do you have any experience with Arcadia ECAD, Cadonix or Cableteque software? (If yes, or if you have experience with relevant Harness design tools, briefly explain)
- Are you able to travel to visit and provide support to our US facilities?

Experience:

- Wire Harness Manufacturing: 1 year (Preferred)

Language:

- English and Spanish fluently (Preferred)

Willingness to travel:

- 50% (Preferred)

Work Location: In person

📌 Director of Product Engineering (México)
🏢 Kauffman Engineering
📍 México