Precision Machining Applications & Costing Engineer

About the Role

Picture a week where you’re reviewing a customer’s print in the morning, running cycle-time what-ifs over lunch, and walking a supplier’s shop floor that afternoon to sort out a surface finish concern. As our Precision Machining Applications & Costing Engineer, you’re the technical point person who helps launch and grow complex precision manufacturing and machining programs—bridging process engineering, quoting, and on-site customer support.

Ideally, you’ll reside near our locations in Kentwood, MI, Marshall, MI, or Wellington, OH. Travel is part of how you make an impact—visiting suppliers, customers, and our plants as needed.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the technical liaison for new and existing precision machining projects, nurturing relationships across customer sites and our plants to drive technically sound growth.
• Translate requirements into process plans: build routings, layouts, and cycle-time calculations; estimate manufacturing costs; and capture all details in our quoting database to produce first-draft pricing for the sales and leadership teams.
• Read and interpret technical documents—part prints, material specifications, process flow diagrams, and cleanliness/particle count standards—and provide prompt, accurate feedback.
• Troubleshoot issues in real time at the customer, supplier, or factory; recommend solutions around tooling, fixturing, workholding, or process parameters.
• Support quality activities including APQP; gather performance indicators and communicate insights through clear reports to the right stakeholders.
• Plan and lead field activity: go to the supplier, go to the customer, go to the factory—wherever the problem or opportunity lives.
• Arrange and participate in plant/customer meetings and conference calls; perform quote follow-up with both internal teams and customers.
• Build trust and rapport, develop “intelligence” on programs and competitors, and ensure smooth dissemination of key information.

Your Toolkit

• Working knowledge across precision machining, milling, drilling, grinding, abrasive and surface/edge finishing, heat and surface treatments, tooling, fixtures, workholding, and gaging.
• Fluency with engineering economics: cycle-time modeling, process layouts, and cost drivers for the technologies above.

Skills That Set You Apart

• Self-starter who operates independently and follows through.
• Structured troubleshooter and problem solver with a continuous-improvement mindset.
• Organized communicator—written and verbal—with attention to detail.
• Team player and effective negotiator/mediator; culturally open-minded.
• Flexible and willing to travel.
• English language proficiency.

Minimum Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Engineering and at least 3 years in manufacturing/machining/metal forming; OR demonstrated project management plus 5 years of experience.
• Hands-on experience in sales or customer support.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (or similar tools).
• Working knowledge of QS9000/TS16949 (or equivalent).
• Comfort with finance/cost management and a working knowledge of statistics.

Where You’ll Excel

If you enjoy moving fluidly from quote-generation and data analysis to plant visits and customer calls—and you’re energized by solving machining challenges in real time—this role puts you at the center of meaningful, technically successful business growth.