Field Application Engineer

CTS Corporation; Stuttgart; On-site; EUR 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

CTS Corporation in Stuttgart seeks a Customer Liaison and Product Development Specialist to identify new opportunities and educate customers on product interfaces and system requirements, becoming the regional subject matter expert on automotive megatrends.

You will coordinate cross-functional projects, build strong customer relationships, support profitability targets, and facilitate design, development and production activities with CTS and the customer engineering teams, including travel as

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related field required.
• 3+ years of engineering, product development and design experience.
• Experience with automotive companies and OEMs, ideally Tier 1 or 2 suppliers.
• Strong ability to understand customer standards, specs and CTS metrics.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to interact with high levels of customer management.

Responsibilities

• Act as liaison for new products and technologies and identify opportunities to expand CTS portfolio.
• Coordinate and manage customer projects with all involved functional areas.
• Support profitability targets based on defined business cases.
• Establish and maintain strong customer relationships and identify decision makers.
• Serve as liaison between customer engineering and CTS for design, application, and quality issues.

Skills

German language

English communication

Customer requirements understanding

Product development

Project management

Negotiation

Travel flexibility

Automotive sensor applications

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering

Job description

Key responsibilities include acting as a liaison for all new product and technologies as well as identifying new opportunities to help expand our product portfolio. Act as a liaison between the customer and CTS. Educate customers on product interface and system requirements to ensure the product meets the application. Act as the subject matter expert for the assigned region in terms of the macro market environment and automotive megatrends.

Major Areas of Responsibility

• Identify and support new business opportunities at assigned and new accounts assuring cross functional as well as business unit and regional strategy alignment.
• Coordinate and manage customer projects with all involved functional areas to assure approval and success for the projects.
• Support in achievement of set profitability targets of projects, based on defined business case.
• Establish and maintain strong customer relationships and identify decision makers.
• Support regional growth strategy.
• Serve as liaison between the customer’s engineering group and CTS with respect to all design and application issues and quality matters for new business opportunities, awarded, development and serial production projects.
• Provide on-site technical support for all customer and CTS meetings for new product development and current product applications.
• Formalize specifications for new products and/or assembly applications with respect to customer requirements, design intent, and cost-effective test methods and requirements.
• Support advanced quality planning activities for new products consistent with CTS guidelines and customer expectations. This would include, but not be limited to, design FMEA’s, design validation, feasibility studies, and design of experiments and design reviews.
• Support the acquisition of knowledge with respect to all mechanical and electronic systems interactions to which our products are applied to meet customer needs.
• Identify and understand customer applications, how CTS products provide value, and communicate to organization.
• Provide the technical support on production quality issue, VAVE activity, new product promotion and quote together with Sales, Quality members.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to understand customer standards, specifications, and requirements as they pertain to CTS products, capabilities and systems reporting metrics.
• Proven track record of driving new ideas and product opportunities into the customer and delivering customer requirements back to CTS.
• A strong understanding of product development with intimate knowledge of customer program management requirements.
• Solid understanding of CTS and customer processes and people with ability to coordinate activity.
• Proven ability to drive new ideas and product opportunities into the customer while delivering customer requirements and methodologies back to CTS
• Strong negotiating / influencing skills to work with the customer on their requirements and with internal teams / stakeholders on meeting those requirements
• Experience working with automotive sensor applications and/or pedals preferred
• Ability to travel as needed domestically and internationally
• Native German language and business English communication.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related field
• 3+ years of experience in engineering, product development and design
• Experience with automotive companies and OEMs, ideally Tier 1 or 2 suppliers
• Ability to understand customer standards, specs and requirements as they pertain to CTS products, capabilities and systems reporting metrics
• A strong understanding of OEM product development processes
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to effectively interact with high levels of customer management and communicate back to CTS

Physical Demands

• Ability to work several hours at a computer.
• Ability to travel to customer plant manufacturing locations as well as engineering headquarters including oversea travel.