Senior Applications Engineer

Detroit Manufacturing Systems; Wixom (MI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Kinetyc is seeking a seasoned engineering liaison to bridge product design and manufacturing in advanced hardware. You’ll own technical relationships from onboarding through production and lead DFM discussions and design reviews.

With 8–15 years in mechanical/electrical/systems engineering, you’ll translate CAD/BOM into manufacturing plans and collaborate with contract manufacturers and suppliers to accelerate time-to-market while maintaining quality.

Qualifications

• 8–15 years of engineering experience with meaningful time on the product/customer side.
• Background in mechanical, electrical, or systems engineering; electromechanical or complex assembled products experience preferred.
• Comfortable in DFM conversations and explaining manufacturability tradeoffs while preserving relationships.
• Experience reading CAD, BOMs, and technical design packages.
• Worked in or with contract manufacturers, Tier 1/2 suppliers, or product development environments.
• Familiar with the pace and ambiguity of early-stage or scaling hardware companies.
• Strong communicator in both technical design reviews and executive discussions.

Responsibilities

• Primary technical relationship with new and existing customers from onboarding through production.
• Lead customer engineering conversations — requirements gathering, DFM feedback, systems integration discussions, and technical risk identification.
• Bridge between customer product design and Kinetyc manufacturing engineering — translating CAD, BOM, and design packages into executable manufacturing plans.
• Support the 30-day new customer launch process as the technical lead.
• Identify and communicate gaps between customer expectations and Kinetyc capabilities — early and with proposed solutions.
• Contribute to FLEXembly and innovation initiatives where customer insight drives product development opportunities.
• Represent Kinetyc’s technical capability in customer-facing settings — presentations, site visits, design reviews.

Skills

Mechanical engineering

Electrical engineering

Systems engineering

DFM feedback

CAD interpretation

BOM interpretation

Contract manufacturing

Communication

Education

Engineering degree

Job description

Why This Role Exists

Kinetyc sits at the intersection of advanced manufacturing and deep product engineering — and our customers are building some of the most technically complex end products in their respective markets. This role exists because our customers need more than a contract manufacturer. They need a technical partner who understands their product, anticipates their engineering challenges, and can translate between their design intent and our manufacturing reality — fluently, confidently, and quickly.

What You’ll Own

• Primary technical relationship with new and existing customers from onboarding through production
• Lead customer engineering conversations — requirements gathering, DFM feedback, systems integration discussions, and technical risk identification
• Bridge between customer product design and Kinetyc manufacturing engineering — translating CAD, BOM, and design packages into executable manufacturing plans
• Support the 30-day new customer launch process as the technical lead
• Identify and communicate gaps between customer expectations and Kinetyc capabilities — early, clearly, and with proposed solutions
• Contribute to FLEXembly™ and innovation initiatives where customer insight drives product development opportunities
• Represent Kinetyc’s technical capability in customer-facing settings — presentations, site visits, design reviews

What You’ve Done

• 8–15 years of engineering experience with meaningful time on the product/customer side — you’ve been the person the customer calls, not just the person who builds
• Background in mechanical, electrical, or systems engineering; experience with electromechanical or complex assembled products strongly preferred
• Comfortable in DFM conversations — you can tell a customer what’s not manufacturable and why, and offer a better path forward without losing the relationship
• Experience reading and interpreting CAD, BOMs, and technical design packages
• Worked in or with contract manufacturers, Tier 1/2 suppliers, or product development environments
• Familiar with the pace and ambiguity of early-stage or scaling hardware companies — you don’t need a perfect spec to get started
• Strong communicator: equally effective in a technical design review and an executive business conversation

What Makes You Different

• You think in systems, not just parts — you understand how design decisions upstream affect manufacturability, cost, and schedule downstream
• You ask the uncomfortable question early instead of absorbing the problem late
• You treat customer relationships as long-term partnerships, not transactions
• You’re organized enough to manage multiple customers in parallel without dropping the ball
• You take pride in being the person who makes complex things happen smoothly

Why Kinetyc

We’re not a traditional contract manufacturer. We’re an adaptive manufacturing partner to companies building the hard things — drones, defense systems, robotics, clean energy, and advanced mobility. We operate with the discipline of Detroit manufacturing and the agility of a startup. Our customers are trying to change their industries; we’re trying to build the manufacturing capability that makes that possible.

This role sits at the center of that mission. If you want to work where the product engineering and the factory floor actually talk to each other — and you want to be the person who makes that happen — this is the job.