Application Engineer

The Applications Engineer is the primary customer-facing technical representative within the Engineering Department and is responsible for leading the technical execution of customer applications, customer projects, aircraft surveys, proposal support, installation planning, and customer-facing engineering documentation. This position serves as the bridge between customers, Business Development, Engineering, Customer Service, Operations, Certification, Quality, Supply Chain, and Production.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Demonstrates company values and reinforces the organizational commitment to safe, compliant, high-quality aerospace lighting products, strong customer service, disciplined engineering execution, and on-time customer project performance.
• Serves as the primary Engineering interface for assigned customer projects, with accountability for customer technical communication, project documentation, proposal technical support, engineering milestone completion, and coordination of Engineering resources with the Engineering Manager.
• Lead assigned customer application projects from opportunity definition through proposal support, customer alignment, engineering execution, documentation release, production launch support, and project closeout.
• Travel to customer sites, aircraft surveys, technical reviews, installation events, trade shows, and field-support activities to gather requirements, resolve technical issues, and reduce direct customer-interface burden on the Engineering Manager.
• Lead customer projects with input from Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Certification, Quality, Manufacturing Engineering, Supply Chain, Operations, and the Engineering
• Cost proposals and support the Business Development Manager with technical responses to RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, technical clarifications, customer questions, product comparisons, installation assumptions, and certification assumptions.
• Develop the technical cost package for customer opportunities, including BOM assumptions, engineering hours, project schedule, design-review needs, documentation effort, certification assumptions, DO-160 assumptions, travel requirements, technical risks, and scope exclusions.
• Partner with the Engineering Manager to validate technical assumptions, resource loading, qualification needs, project schedule, engineering effort, and design risks before proposal approval.
• Support value-based pricing by clearly documenting customer value drivers such as reliability, MTBF, reduced maintenance, reduced aircraft downtime, plug-and-play installation, lower power consumption, lower weight, certification readiness, and improved passenger experience.
• Identify and escalate scope creep, unquoted engineering work, custom requirements, certification risk, configuration changes, added travel, or customer requests that could affect margin, price, delivery, or resource commitments.

QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Engineering Technology, or a related technical discipline preferred; equivalent technical experience may be considered.
• Strong customer-facing technical communication skills, including the ability to communicate credibly with customers, Business Development, Engineering, Operations, Quality, Certification, and executive stakeholders.
• Strong project leadership skills, including schedule management, milestone tracking, action-item closure, risk identification, issue escalation, and cross-functional coordination.
• Ability to understand aircraft platform requirements, customer applications, product capabilities, installation constraints, certification implications, manufacturability, cost drivers, and commercial impact.
• Ability to read and interpret technical drawings, wiring diagrams, aircraft manuals, service bulletins, specifications, BOMs, product data sheets, and customer requirements.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally, approximately 50% of the time.