Job Description
Senior Mechanical Engineer, Capital Equipment
Location: Lake Zurich, Illinois
Pay: $135-155k + Bonus
Work arrangement: on-site
Travel: Periodic travel to suppliers and customers as required
Position Summary
Our Client is seeking a hands-on Senior Mechanical Engineer to lead mechanical design and contribute to the long-term development of the company’s engineering organization. The selected candidate will work closely with senior leadership and participate in a structured, multi-year transfer of product knowledge, technical authority, and engineering responsibility. This highly visible position combines engineered-to-order capital-equipment design, system integration, fabrication support, field problem-solving, and technical team leadership.
This is not a purely administrative management position. The selected candidate must remain technically engaged and capable of performing original design work, reviewing engineering work, resolving complex equipment problems, and improving engineering practices.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the mechanical design of engineered-to-order industrial equipment from initial requirements through production release, fabrication, installation, and field support.
- Perform hands-on SolidWorks design work involving equipment layouts, complex assemblies, production drawings, components, and engineering changes.
- Review and approve mechanical drawings and designs.
- Lead formal design reviews addressing equipment performance, safety, manufacturability, serviceability, cost, and schedule.
- Integrate fabricated structures, burners, gas trains, fans, ductwork, instrumentation, controls, and purchased components into complete operating systems.
- Provide day-to-day technical direction, work prioritization, coaching, and development for an established mechanical engineering team.
- Partner with electrical engineering, project management, purchasing, fabrication, field service, sales, suppliers, and customers.
- Resolve design, fabrication, installation, commissioning, and operating problems using disciplined root-cause analysis.
- Identify technical and project-execution risks early and communicate practical recommendations to senior leadership.
- Improve engineering standards, drawing quality, component standardization, revision control, and SolidWorks/PDM practices.
- Capture essential product and process knowledge as part of CPI’s structured engineering-leadership transition.
- Support customer sites, suppliers, equipment inspections, installations, commissioning activities, and field troubleshooting as required.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from an accredited institution.
- Typically 10 or more years of progressively responsible mechanical-engineering experience.
- Demonstrated experience designing complex industrial capital equipment, preferably in an engineered-to-order environment.
- Advanced and current SolidWorks proficiency, including original design, equipment layouts, complex assemblies, production drawings, design reviews, and engineering changes.
- Experience supporting mechanical designs through fabrication and assembly.
- Experience supporting equipment installation, commissioning, field troubleshooting, or aftermarket service.
- Experience integrating fabricated mechanical assemblies with purchased equipment, instrumentation, electrical systems, and controls.
- Demonstrated technical leadership through team supervision, project leadership, design authority, engineer mentoring, work assignment, or department-level responsibility.
- Demonstrated ability to resolve design, fabrication, installation, and field-performance problems using structured root-cause analysis.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to communicate effectively with customers, senior leaders, engineers, fabrication personnel, suppliers, and field technicians.
- Ability to travel to supplier and customer locations as required.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience designing thermal oxidizers, air-pollution-control equipment, industrial ovens, furnaces, burners, gas trains, boilers, process-heating systems, heat-recovery systems, or related thermal equipment.
- Working knowledge of industrial combustion and process-airflow systems.
- SolidWorks PDM experience.
- Experience supporting equipment using Allen-Bradley or Siemens controls.
- Familiarity with NFPA 86, applicable ASME practices, OSHA requirements, and industrial-equipment risk assessment.
- Formal personnel-management experience.
- Experience improving drawing-release, revision-control, engineering-change, configuration-management, or design-standardization processes.
Leadership Expectations
The successful candidate will be expected to:
- Set high standards for engineering quality, timeliness, and accountability.
- Remain technically engaged while leading and developing others.
- Make timely, evidence-based engineering decisions.
- Communicate concerns early and recommend practical solutions.
- Build productive relationships across engineering, operations, sales, project management, and service.
- Develop team capabilities through coaching, technical guidance, and constructive feedback.
- Balance customer requirements, technical risk, manufacturability, serviceability, cost, and schedule.
#INC1
Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information.
Numbers & Facts
| Location | Lake Zurich, IL |
| Industry | Staffing/Employment Agencies |
| Company Size | 500 to 999 employees |
| Year Founded | 1969 |
| Website | http://www.sterling-engineering.com |
About Company
Sterling Engineering has been a trusted partner for engineering, project management, and staffing solutions for over five decades. We provide exceptional engineering/technical recruitment and engineering project services to clients nationwide:
- Engineering & Technical Recruitment - With our focus on engineering, technical, and IT, Sterling has the in-depth knowledge, industry expertise, and robust employee pipeline it takes to rapidly find talent for even the most difficult to fill positions. Sterling’s extensive recruitment methodology allows us to engage the most talented employees in the marketplace. We offer exciting work and career-building opportunities for our candidates, along with expert support at every step of the process.
- Engineering Project Services – Our experienced, multi-disciplined team of project managers, engineers, and designers, led by licensed Professional Engineers (PE), provide project management, engineering, design, and Commissioning, Qualification, and Validation (CQV) to manufacturing, OEM, and R&D customers. We work on complex, highly technical projects across a number of industry sectors, and our ability to scale and seamlessly integrate at multiple levels of your organization is what differentiates us.
Sterling offers a unique combination of engineering solutions and Best of Staffing level service to help our clients and talent achieve their goals.
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