Senior Engineering Leader, Manufacturing & Customer Delivery

Purple Hires Inc; Peoria (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Purple Hires Inc. seeks a senior engineering leader in Peoria, IL to guide manufacturing, mechanical, and product engineering teams and to drive delivery excellence for the Caterpillar account.

You will partner with customer leadership to align engineering solutions with business needs and lead cross-functional reviews and strategic planning discussions. The role emphasizes customer-facing leadership, program management, and growth of engineering services within existing accounts, with a focus

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial or related engineering field.
• 10+ years in manufacturing, mechanical, or product engineering environments.
• 5+ years leading engineering teams and managing technical personnel.
• Proven customer-facing leadership experience within an engineering services organization.
• Demonstrated success growing engineering services business within existing customer accounts.
• Direct experience with Caterpillar is required.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering, product development, industrial operations, and engineering service delivery models.
• Experience leading teams supporting large industrial or heavy equipment manufacturers.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and executive relationship management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of manufacturing, mechanical, and product engineering professionals.
• Manage employee performance, career development, staffing plans, and resource allocation.
• Foster a culture of accountability, customer focus, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure team members are positioned for success through coaching, training, and leadership development.
• Support recruiting, onboarding, and retention of high-performing engineering talent.
• Serve as a primary leadership interface for Caterpillar engineering and manufacturing stakeholders.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with customer leadership teams across multiple business units.
• Act as a trusted advisor capable of understanding customer challenges and aligning engineering solutions to business needs.
• Lead customer reviews, operational discussions, issue resolution, and strategic planning sessions.
• Identify, qualify, and pursue opportunities for expanded engineering services within Caterpillar.
• Partner with sales, account management, and delivery teams to develop growth strategies.
• Drive organic account expansion across manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering, product engineering, supply chain, quality, and related engineering services.
• Support proposal development, SOW creation, pricing strategies, and customer presentations.
• Develop and maintain a healthy pipeline of opportunities within assigned business areas.
• Ensure successful execution of engineering projects while maintaining quality, schedule, and budget objectives.
• Monitor project performance and proactively address delivery risks.
• Drive utilization, productivity, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence metrics.
• Coordinate resources across onsite and global delivery teams.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives and best practice deployment.

Skills

Leadership

Executive communication

Customer relationship management

Strategic planning

Program management

Resource management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical/Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering

Job description

Purple Hires Inc. seeks a senior engineering leader in Peoria, IL to guide manufacturing, mechanical, and product engineering teams and to drive delivery excellence for the Caterpillar account.

You will partner with customer leadership to align engineering solutions with business needs and lead cross-functional reviews and strategic planning discussions. The role emphasizes customer-facing leadership, program management, and growth of engineering services within existing accounts, with a focus