Senior Gear Design Engineer

Growing Groves; Cleveland (OH); On-site; USD 85,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Excellent benefits package

Job summary

Growing Groves in Cleveland, OH seeks a senior designer to advance worm gear and enclosed gear-drive designs in a hands-on role that balances shop-floor collaboration with cutting-edge methods. You will help expand into power generation, turbine drives, and custom applications while absorbing decades of gearbox knowledge alongside veteran designers.

The position emphasizes practical design work, collaboration with machinists, and the modernization of calculation methods and tooling to deliver

Qualifications

• Design custom worm gearsets and enclosed gear drives from customer specs to shop-ready drawings.
• Perform gear geometry, rating, and bearing-life analyses for worm and helical gears.
• Create dimensional layouts, bearing life calculations, and shaft/housing/seal designs.
• Produce GD&T-labeled manufacturing drawings and BOMs for shop floor.
• Collaborate with machinists on the floor to refine designs and solve production issues.
• Reverse-engineer and re-rate legacy gearboxes for rebuilds.
• Support customers and sales on custom applications, mainly by phone and email.
• Help modernize design methods, tooling, and configuration processes.

Responsibilities

• Design custom worm gearsets and enclosed gear drives from customer specification to shop-ready package.
• Work gear geometry, rating, and thermal/efficiency analysis for worm and helical gearing.
• Execute dimensional layouts, bearing L10 life calculations, and shaft/housing/seal design.
• Produce clean manufacturing drawings and BOMs with proper GD&T for the shop floor.
• Work elbow-to-elbow with machinists on the floor to refine designs and solve production issues (roughly 30% of your week).
• Reverse-engineer and re-rate legacy gearboxes for rebuild and upgrade programs.
• Support customers and sales on custom applications — mostly by phone and email, with occasional local visits on special projects.
• Help modernize how the team designs: calculation methods, tooling, and standard-product configuration.

Skills

Worm gear design

Enclosed gear drives design

Gear geometry

2D/3D CAD

Education

BSME preferred

Equivalent design experience

Tools

AutoCAD

Creo/Pro-E

KISSsoft

Romax

Job description

Family-owned for more than a century, our client pioneered mass-produced worm gearing in America — and they're still the name engineers specify when a worm drive has to survive the most demanding conditions in steel, power generation, and material handling. Now they're modernizing. They're moving their design capability into new markets — power-generation and turbine drives, mixer drives, and custom applications — and they want a senior designer who'll bring fresh thinking to a legacy craft, not just maintain it.

About the Role

This is a hands-on design role, and the timing matters: one of the team's veteran designers retires this fall, so the right person can ramp up alongside him and absorb decades of hard-won worm-gear knowledge before he's gone.

Responsibilities

• Design custom worm gearsets and enclosed gear drives from customer specification to shop-ready package
• Work gear geometry, rating, and thermal/efficiency analysis for worm and helical gearing
• Execute dimensional layouts, bearing L10 life calculations, and shaft/housing/seal design
• Produce clean manufacturing drawings and BOMs with proper GD&T for the shop floor
• Work elbow-to-elbow with machinists on the floor to refine designs and solve production issues (roughly 30% of your week)
• Reverse-engineer and re-rate legacy gearboxes for rebuild and upgrade programs
• Support customers and sales on custom applications — mostly by phone and email, with occasional local visits on special projects
• Help modernize how the team designs: calculation methods, tooling, and standard-product configuration

Qualifications

• BSME preferred; deep, demonstrable design experience can stand in for the degree
• Around 7 years of hands-on gear or power-transmission design experience

Required Skills

• Hands-on worm gear design experience — this is the heart of the role
• Design of enclosed gear drives / speed reducers: housings, bearings, shafts, seals, lubrication
• A solid command of gear geometry, rating, and bearing-life fundamentals
• Proficiency in 2D and 3D CAD (AutoCAD and Creo/Pro-E preferred)

Preferred Skills

• Familiarity with AGMA rating practice (e.g., AGMA 6034 for worm gearing, 2001/2101 for helical) and GD&T (ASME Y14.5)
• Hob and cutting-tool design for worm wheels and gears
• Breadth across helical, spur, bevel, or planetary gearing
• Experience taking a product line into new markets (power gen, turbines, mixer drives)
• Modern gear-analysis or PLM tooling (e.g., KISSsoft, Romax) or design automation

Pay Range and Compensation Package

A profitable, growing 100+ year company entering new markets — real greenfield design work, not just rebuilds. Direct influence — leadership is actively asking for fresh ideas and new technology, not the status quo. A genuinely hands-on seat: roughly 70% design / 30% on the floor, where your drawings become hardware. The stability of a business that's stayed independent for generations, where you're a name, not a number — plus strong benefits and a 401(k) match.

Our client is an equal opportunity employer. This position is on-site in the Cleveland, OH area.