Distinguished Engineer, Material Handling Systems

Position Purpose:

Distinguished Engineers are recognized as experts in one or more domains within the organization and across the industry, serving as senior technical authorities with a strong track record of influencing, mentoring, and growing other technical leaders. They connect teams through collaboration and champion opportunities to improve efficiency, reliability, and technical excellence across the enterprise.

The Distinguished Engineer – Conveyor Controls serves as the highest-level technical authority for conveyor control system support across the organization. This role provides strategic technical leadership across the architecture, design, reliability, and lifecycle management of conveyor control systems, ensuring operational excellence, system availability, and safe, efficient material handling operations. The position leads advanced troubleshooting, reliability improvement initiatives, and maintenance support strategies to support long-term platform stability.

In partnership with engineering, maintenance, operations, IT/OT teams, senior leaders, vendors, and partners, this role helps shape the go-forward technology direction for conveyor control platforms by driving standardization, innovation, continuous improvement, and the adoption of new technologies across the enterprise.

Key Responsibilities:

• 30% Strategy & Planning:
• Works with senior leaders to shape the go-forward vision for the organization from a specific domain perspective
• Works with vendors and partners on the successful strategy, planning, and implementation of critical tooling and platforms
• Participates in and influences development of technology roadmaps across the enterprise
• Evaluates new technologies for adoption across the enterprise
• Drives thought leadership and innovation within the organization
• 30% Support & Enablement:
• Fields questions from product, project and support teams
• Evangelizes successful usage of tooling and technologies with teams
• Monitors tools and leads conversations to encourage collaboration across product teams
• Learns, through reading, tutorials, relationships, and videos, new technologies and best practices being used in other organizations
• 25% Delivery & Execution:
• Teaches, mentors, grows, and advises other domain experts in the organization (including direct reports, if applicable)
• Documents, reviews and ensures that all quality and change control standards are met
• Works with vendors and partners on the successful planning and implementation of critical tooling and platforms
• Understands and articulates the value creation and business proposition to teams and functional partners
• Participates in and leads review board sessions to drive consistency across the enterprise
• 15% People:
• Acts as a point of escalation for teams facing extremely complex challenges
• Participates in and leads learning activities within the organization
• Connects teams facing similar challenges and problems to encourage consistency
• Presents at and attends conferences and learns how to apply new technologies and concepts
• Capable of jumping into a variety of teams to resolve issues
• Provides leadership, mentoring, and coaching to direct reports (if applicable)
• Conducts annual and mid-year reviews, reviewing individual development plans and providing performance feedback (if applicable)
• Attracts, retains, develops, and motivates top talent (applicable if incumbent has direct reports)

Direct Manager/Direct Reports:

• This role typically reports to Sr. Director or Vice President and may have a small number of non-manager direct reports with VP approval.

Travel Requirements:

• Typically requires overnight travel up to 50% of the time.

Physical Requirements:

• Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.

Working Conditions:

• Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Must be eighteen years of age or older.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States

Preferred Qualifications:

• 8-10 years of relevant work experience
• Professionally recognized by peers and leaders in the organization for significant expertise within a specific domain
• Mastery of problem solving, innovation, vision, judgement, and leadership within a specific domain
• Track record of noteworthy innovation and execution that shaped the direction of an organization and/or the industry within a specific domain
• Track record of teaching, mentoring, growing and advising other domain experts inside and outside of the organization
• Capable of understanding complicated systems quickly
• Active participation in or leadership of professional groups affiliated with a specific domain
• Mastery in assigned domain

Minimum Education:

• The knowledge, skills and abilities typically acquired through the completion of a bachelor's degree program or equivalent degree in a field of study related to the job.

Preferred Education:

• No additional education

Minimum Years of Work Experience:

• 8

Preferred Years of Work Experience:

• No additional years of experience

Minimum Leadership Experience:

• None

Preferred Leadership Experience:

• None

Certifications:

• None

Competencies:

• Action Oriented: Taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm
• Attracts Top Talent: Attracting and selecting the best talent to meet current and future business needs (applicable if incumbent has direct reports)
• Builds Effective Teams: Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals (applicable if incumbent has direct reports)
• Builds Networks: Effectively building formal and informal relationship networks inside and outside the organization
• Collaborates: Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives
• Courage: Stepping up to address difficult issues, saying what needs to be said
• Cultivates Innovation: Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful
• Decision Quality: Making good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward
• Develops Talent: Developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization's goals (applicable if incumbent has direct reports)
• Drives Engagement: Creating a climate where people are motivated to do their best to help the organization achieve its objectives (applicable if incumbent has direct reports)
• Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances
• Drives Vision and Purpose: Painting a compelling picture of the vision and strategy that motivates others to action
• Global Perspective: Taking a broad view when approaching issues; using a global lens
• Manages Complexity: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems
• Nimble Learning: Actively learning through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder
• Self-Development: Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels
• Situational Adaptability: Adapting approach and demeanor in real time to match the shifting demands of different situations
• Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies
• Tech Savvy: Anticipating and adopting innovations in business-building digital and technology applications