Product Planning Engineer

Derrick Corporation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Derrick Corporation, a family-owned company with a global presence, seeks an engineer-analyst to decide what Derrick builds rather than design it. You’ll turn raw product ideas into structured assessments on value, customer benefit, and feasibility for strategic opportunities.

This analytic role supports the leader of the strategic innovation function, grounding decisions in market sizing, competitive positioning, and business cases. Travel up to 15% to sites and events is expected.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a technical discipline
• 2–6 years of professional experience in engineering/technical roles
• Interest in moving toward the business side of product decisions
• Comfort with ambiguity, and with having your thinking challenged
• Entrepreneurial instinct and proactive problem-solving
• Directness with evidence-based reasoning

Responsibilities

• Own the intake process for new product opportunities.
• Work opportunities through Derrick's staged assessment framework and answer if it is valuable to the customer, to Derrick, and feasible.
• Translate between technical possibility and business viability via collaboration with technical, commercial, and leadership teams.
• Go on-site with customers to test assumptions with plant managers and engineers.
• Develop real business judgment: size opportunities and understand competitive and pricing dynamics.
• Write opportunity assessments, market requirements documents, and executive-ready summaries.
• Travel up to 15% to customer sites, plants, and industry events.

Skills

Structured problem-solving

Technical credibility

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or technical discipline

Job description

Derrick® is a family-owned and operated company with a global presence focused on pioneering fine-separation technology. Since 1951, Derrick has expanded its product portfolio to serve a variety of challenging markets within the Mining & Industrial, Oil & Gas Drilling, and Civil Construction industries. Derrick remains committed to providing the latest technological enhancements that evolve alongside industry best practices and market developments. Derrick's corporate headquarters, in-house manufacturing facility, and Mining & Industrial are based out of Derrick Corporation in Buffalo, New York, while Oil & Gas Drilling and Underground Construction & Aggregates are run out of its Houston, Texas office. This year, 2026 marks our 75th year in operation, which speaks to our enduring legacy and global presence.

Summary

This role is for an engineer who wants to help decide what Derrick builds, not design it. You'll turn raw product ideas from engineers, commercial experts, and the field into structured assessments on whether Derrick should pursue an opportunity, for whom, and why.

This is a dedicated analytical role: your assessments inform the leader of the strategic innovation function who decides which opportunities to pursue and secures executive buy-in for major investments. Your job is to ground those decisions in real analysis, not assumption.

We're hiring for trajectory, not a finished skill set. You'll learn market sizing, value framing, competitive positioning, and business cases on the job. What matters is technical fluency, structured thinking, and asking why before how. You'll start by studying Derrick's products and markets, forming your own assessments against past decisions, then progress from intake work to deeper analysis as your judgement develops.

This isn't design engineering; no drafting or product development. We want the engineering mindset (structured problem-solving, technical credibility with specialists), not the design work itself.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the intake process for new product opportunities. Ideas arrive from sales, engineering, and leadership in varying states of completeness. You'll seek rationale, separate the real problem from the proposed solution, and judge whether there's enough substance to analyze the opportunity.
• Work opportunities through Derrick's staged assessment framework. You will be coached through the methodology at the start, and you'll be expected to build on it and own the process over time. Ultimately, we need to answer three key questions related to new product development: is it valuable to the customer, valuable to Derrick, and feasible?
• Translate between technical possibility and business viability. You'll do this by regularly collaborating with Derrick's technical, commercial, and leadership teams.
• Go on-site with customers. Talk to plant managers, process engineers, and operations leadership to test the assumptions your assessments rest on. Our equipment sits inside a larger process and understanding that process is often the difference between a good assessment and a wrong one.
• Develop real business judgment. You'll learn to size an opportunity and quantify what a change is worth to a customer's operation. You'll also build a working understanding of competitive and pricing dynamics across Mining & Industrial, Oil & Gas Drilling, and Civil Construction.
• Write opportunity assessments, market requirements documents, and executive-ready summaries. Clear structured writing is the primary output of this job.
• Travel up to 15% to customer sites, plants, and industry events.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a technical discipline. Mechanical engineering is preferred.
• 2–6 years of professional experience in an engineering, technical, applications, or field role. Industrial equipment, manufacturing, mining, or process industries preferred.
• A clear, considered interest in moving toward the business side of product decisions.
• Comfort with ambiguity, and with having your thinking challenged. Much of this work is forming an independent view, bringing it forward, and pressure-testing it.
• An entrepreneurial instinct. This role rewards people who go find the answer rather than waiting for it. That means getting on the phone, working across divisions, and walking the plant floor until you understand the problem and not just the description of it.
• Directness, and the composure to back it up. This role requires taking a clear position and defending it calmly with evidence, without getting personal or defensive.