Senior Manager – Field Installation & System Commissioning, Automotive Paint Systems

Role Overview
We have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Manager responsible for leading the teams that perform field installation, electrical installation, and system commissioning of automotive paint systems. In this leadership role, you will manage field installation, electrical installation, commissioning, start-up, and customer acceptance teams to ensure safe, on-time, and high-quality execution across complex paint shop projects. You will provide direction, staffing oversight, prioritization, escalation support, and customer-facing leadership while coordinating with engineering, project management, suppliers, subcontractors, and customer stakeholders to ensure delivered systems meet technical, schedule, quality, safety, and performance requirements.

What You’ll Do

Team Management for Field Installation & Commissioning

·       Manage the teams responsible for field installation, electrical installation, mechanical completion, electrical checkout, start-up, commissioning, and customer acceptance activities for automotive paint systems.

·       Provide leadership and direction to site managers, installation supervisors, commissioning specialists, controls resources, subcontractors, and other field execution teams supporting paint shop projects.

·       Oversee day-to-day site execution for paint shop process systems, including pretreatment and electrocoat systems, spray booths, ovens, air handling systems, exhaust systems, conveyance interfaces, robots, automation, controls, and associated utilities.

·       Ensure team members develop and maintain installation and commissioning plans, schedules, manpower forecasts, readiness checklists, risk registers, and punch-list closure processes.

·       Set execution priorities and ensure field teams coordinate daily activities with project management, engineering, site supervision, subcontractors, suppliers, and customer representatives.

·       Hold field teams accountable for executing work in accordance with drawings, specifications, quality standards, safety requirements, and approved project execution plans.

·       Provide escalation support and leadership for troubleshooting field issues during installation, start-up, wet testing, dry runs, production trials, and performance validation.

·       Ensure teams drive closure of open issues, nonconformances, and customer punch-list items to support system handover and final acceptance.

Project, Customer & Cross-Functional Coordination

·       Serve as the senior leader for the field installation and commissioning organization on assigned paint system projects, ensuring team activities align with project scope, budget, schedule, quality, and customer commitments.

·       Partner with Project Managers to define team responsibilities, installation strategies, commissioning milestones, escalation paths, staffing plans, and recovery actions when needed.

·       Represent the field execution organization with customer leadership, plant operations, maintenance, safety, quality, and launch teams to support successful system integration and production readiness.

·       Review project specifications, installation documentation, commissioning procedures, and acceptance criteria to ensure teams are prepared, staffed, and aligned before field execution begins.

·       Ensure timely reporting from field teams on site progress, risks, constraints, safety performance, open issues, resource needs, and next-step priorities.

People Leadership, Safety & Continuous Improvement

·       Lead, mentor, and develop the managers, supervisors, specialists, and subcontractor leaders responsible for field installation and commissioning execution.

·       Build and maintain a strong safety culture across all field teams and ensure leaders enforce customer site rules, company safety standards, lockout/tagout requirements, permitting processes, and applicable regulatory requirements.

·       Establish consistent expectations for field execution practices, commissioning standards, lessons learned, team communication, and continuous-improvement actions across projects.

·       Own resource planning, workload balancing, subcontractor leadership alignment, field productivity reviews, and post-project evaluations to improve future execution.

What You Bring

·       Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Industrial Technology, or a related technical discipline; equivalent field leadership experience may be considered.

·       10 years of experience in installation, start-up, commissioning, project execution, or site management for automotive paint systems, industrial process systems, or large-scale automation projects.

·       5 years of experience managing managers, supervisors, field teams, subcontractors, commissioning specialists, or multi-discipline site execution groups.

·       Strong working knowledge of the day-to-day activities required to install, commission, and launch automotive paint shop equipment and processes, including body pretreatment, electrocoat, sealer, primer, topcoat, clearcoat, ovens, booths, ventilation, filtration, environmental systems, robotics, controls, and conveyance interfaces.

·       Demonstrated ability to interpret mechanical, electrical, controls, process, piping, layout, and installation drawings and guide teams in translating them into executable field plans.

·       Experience overseeing commissioning teams responsible for system checkout, functional testing, dry runs, wet testing, production trials, performance verification, and customer acceptance.

·       Strong people leadership, planning, communication, customer-facing, problem-solving, prioritization, and escalation-management skills.

·       Proficiency with Microsoft Office and project execution tools; experience using scheduling, punch-list, issue-tracking, resource-management, or commissioning-management systems is preferred.

·       Ability to travel frequently and provide leadership presence at customer project sites, including during critical installation, start-up, and launch phases.

Physical Demands & Working Environment

·       Frequent leadership presence in active construction, manufacturing, and automotive plant environments where assigned teams are performing field installation and commissioning work.

·       Regular walking, standing, climbing stairs or platforms, and moving through installation areas to review team progress, address escalations, and engage with customers and project stakeholders.

·       Occasional presence near mechanical, electrical, process, and automation equipment during installation and commissioning activities to support team alignment and issue resolution.

·       Must be able to comply with and reinforce all customer and company safety requirements, including use of required personal protective equipment.

Dürr Systems, LLC has been present in the United States since 1970 and operates multiple locations across the United States, including facilities in Michigan and Wisconsin. The largest site is in Southfield, Michigan, which serves as the main center for operations. Dürr employs people across the country who support a wide range of market segments. Dürr Systems USA plans, builds, and installs complete, state-of-the-art paint shops and final assembly facilities, supported by DXQ, Dürr's digital products suite. The company also offers advanced automated painting, sealing, and gluing application technologies, as well as high-viscosity material handling solutions. In addition to serving the automotive industry, Dürr Systems provides premium application technology products for the general industry. In the field of electrode manufacturing, Dürr Systems enhances quality, cost efficiency, and speed to market lithium-ion battery electrode coating through its advanced development and manufacturing coating systems. Committed to innovation, excellence, and customized solutions, Dürr Systems addresses the diverse needs of its North American customers with precision and reliability.

Dürr Systems, LLC. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.  

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment drug and alcohol testing. 

Note to all Staffing Agencies: Dürr has a team of dedicated Human Resources professionals who are responsible for all hiring needs. Our practice is to partner and work with our approved vendors on an as needed basis. We do not accept resumes from agencies that are not on our preferred vendor list and have not signed our Recruiting and Permanent Placement Contract. Any resumes submitted from unapproved vendors will be considered unsolicited, and Dürr will not be responsible for any placement fees associated with such candidates.