Design & Development Engineer - New Product Development

Design & development engineer responsible to own and deliver work packages within NPD programs, achieving on time product delivery and compliance to specifications and customer requirements. Working closely with other functional teams as well as external stakeholders to ensure effective & efficient design and development including Design for Manufacture & Assembly, cost, weight, reliability and performance.

Key responsibilities

• To design & develop discrete elements of the seat system achieving comfort, reliability, performance, aesthetic, cost & weight targets.
• To work closely with suppliers to develop the design, taking into consideration supplier capability and piece cost, as well as identifying & exploiting opportunities for technical or commercial advantage.
• To support the operations team to aid suppliers to deliver to the required quality and specification.
• To continually drive the design towards DFM (design for manufacture) and DFA (design for assembly).
• To generate and contribute to the generation of development timing plans, and to actively engage in measures to adhere to plan.
• To drive problem solving activities related to design, development, quality, and manufacturing issues.
• To take responsibility for assigned elements of the seat design, ensuring parts and assemblies are designed to achieve an integrated seat and aircraft installation design solution.
• To produce high quality 3d & 2d design definition using Catia V5 and SmarTeam, along with supporting documentation. 
• Substantiate their designs from a 3D perspective to ensure clash detection and design for assembly has been evaluated. To validate & develop their design through evaluation of prototypes where appropriate.
• Will progress assigned work packages from concept through to supporting production, adhering to the NPD process, including development of Product Requirements Specifications.
• To perform fundamental engineering hand calculations (including stress and stiffness) to substantiate the design of the product where necessary.
• To liaise with external customers to ensure design requirements are understood and achieved. To conduct presentations of their work, internally and at critical reviews to the customer. 
• Liaise with certification and CAE teams to ensure their designs meet the structural and aircraft airworthiness requirements.
• Manage, track and report out their own work to ensure they meet programme deliverables on time and to the right quality. 
• To support multiple aircraft seating programmes in parallel.

Skills and experience required

Essential

• A good Mechanical Engineering Degree, Mathematics/Physics A-levels (or equivalent)
• Experience of working on mechanical product development programmes in a design, manufacturing and test environment
• Experience of the various manufacturing techniques such as composites, injection mouldings, vacuum forming, castings, forgings, extrusions and machining from solid
• Demonstrable experience in planning and executing complex activities
• Demonstrable experience of developing products to a high-quality specification for a demanding customer
• The ability to analyse problems and recommend a course of action
• Ability to work under pressure, within tight deadlines, competing & changing priorities 
• Proficient user of Catia V5, with experience of producing high quality models & engineering drawings.
• Proficient user of MS Office, including MS Project
• Strong interpersonal skills and be a team player
• Must have excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Must work well under their own initiative
• Must be able to demonstrate drive, determination & resilience to overcome obstacles to project completion.

Highly Desirable

• Chartered Engineer
• Experience of developing and implementing best practise methodologies
• Experience in an aerospace seating environment
• Experience of project management
• Experience of robustness and reliability testing