Applications Engineer

Applications Engineer

Position Summary

Working with aerospace and defense customers, the Senior Applications Engineer translates complex technical requirements into competitive, executable manufacturing solutions. The role identifies the most effective way to manufacture CNC parts, leads design for manufacturability (DFM) discussions, presents and justifies non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs, and develops financial business cases for capital investment when needed.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical and manufacturing strategy for complex CNC opportunities and aerospace and defense programs.
• Develop competitive, accurate, and commercially sound proposals that account for materials, machining methods, setup and cycle times, tooling, outside processing, inspection, production volumes, and delivery requirements.
• Serve as a technical partner to Sales, actively participating in customer discovery, opportunity qualification, technical presentations, negotiations, and closing activities.
• Identify opportunities to expand relationships with aerospace and defense customers, secure additional part families, and convert individual projects into recurring production programs.
• Conduct Design for Manufacturability (DFM) reviews and recommend improvements that reduce cost, improve manufacturability, and support production readiness.
• Evaluate machining methods, tooling, workholding, programming strategies, inspection plans, and production workflows.
• Collaborate with manufacturing sites and strategic suppliers to validate capability, capacity and production readiness.
• Partner with Quality, Compliance, and Operations to identify customer-specific quality, documentation, traceability, security, and contractual requirements during opportunity qualification and quoting.
• Ensure the proposed manufacturing strategy incorporates applicable requirements and that associated costs, lead times, and risks are understood before commitments are made to the customer.
• Serve as the technical lead during the transition from awarded opportunity to program onboarding and production, working alongside Program Management.
• Ensure manufacturing teams receive complete requirements, approved DFM decisions, cost assumptions, tooling plans, inspection expectations, and customer commitments.
• Support technical issue resolution and engineering changes through launch. Compare actual manufacturing performance with quoted assumptions and apply lessons learned to improve future proposals and program outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience in precision manufacturing.
• Demonstrated experience supporting aerospace and defense customers, including customer engineering and procurement engagement, technical proposal development, and transition into production.
• 7 years of experience in CNC manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, applications engineering, technical estimating, or a related field.
• Proven business development and technical selling skills, including presenting manufacturing solutions, addressing customer objections, and contributing to successful program awards.
• Strong financial and commercial judgment, including manufacturing cost modeling, pricing and margin analysis, capital investment justification, and development and presentation of NRE proposals.
• Ability to interpret complex technical drawings and CAD models, communicate effectively across technical and commercial audiences, and manage multiple high-value opportunities.