Applications Engineer CNC

Job Responsibilities

• Lead the daily operations of the Applications Engineering Department.
• Coordinate engineering priorities, workloads, schedules, and technical resources.
• Ensure customer demonstrations, turnkey projects, machine validations, training events, and engineering activities are successfully executed.
• Maintain overall readiness of the Chicago Technical Center and ensure showroom machines are customer-ready.
• Lead execution of IMTS demonstrations, Open Houses, customer events, and strategic engineering initiatives.
• Mentor, coach, and develop Applications Engineers while fostering a culture of accountability, ownership, teamwork, and continuous improvement.
• Support customer visits, executive demonstrations, technical presentations, machine evaluations, and manufacturing assessments.
• Collaborate with Sales, Service, Operations, Facilities, Marketing, and Executive Leadership to ensure successful project execution.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with strategic technology partners.
• Develop engineering standards, best practices, and technical documentation.
• Identify process improvements and remove obstacles that prevent the engineering team from being successful.
• Support recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and development of engineering personnel.
• Lead engineering operations and ensure continuity of execution.
• Support global engineering initiatives and collaborate with international engineering teams.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field preferred. Equivalent hands-on manufacturing experience will be given equal consideration.
• Minimum eight years of progressive hands-on experience in CNC machining, manufacturing engineering, applications engineering, machine tool applications, or turnkey manufacturing.
• Previous experience as a CNC Machinist, CNC Programmer, Manufacturing Engineer, Applications Engineer, or similar hands-on manufacturing role.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical teams while remaining actively engaged in engineering activities.
• Extensive hands-on experience with CNC machine setup, programming, prove-out, tooling selection, workholding, fixture design, and process optimization.
• Expert knowledge of multi-axis machining, mill-turn, and multitasking machine tools.
• Experience with Fanuc and/or Siemens CNC controls.
• Experience with one or more major CAM systems such as Mastercam, Siemens NX CAM, hyperMILL, ESPRIT, GibbsCAM, or similar.
• Strong understanding of advanced workholding, cutting tools, fixture design, manufacturing strategy, and machining process optimization.
• Excellent communication, leadership, organizational, and customer-facing skills.
• Approximately 10% travel.