Application Engineer

About the role

This position serves as a critical liaison between Aluminum Dynamics, LLC (ADL) and the automotive industry including OEM customers, stampers, and service centers. The role is customer-facing and technical, ensuring ADL’s automotive business aligns with the mill’s capabilities and operational goals.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer material qualifications and pre-source requirements in collaboration with operations, quality, and sales teams.
• Review customer inquiries and RFQs from a technical perspective, verifying property parameters, material specifications, and performing part investigations as needed.
• Regularly visit assigned customers to monitor quality performance, benchmark competition, and provide detailed feedback to Operations and Commercial teams.
• Aid ADL Field Service in addressing customer complaints, claims, corrective actions, and operational troubleshooting for quality issues.
• Provide technical support to customer manufacturing facilities, including material evaluations such as forming, bonding, welding, strain analysis, FLD analysis, circle grid analysis, and statistical evaluations.
• Cook up and participate in customer visits, tours, audits, and certification procedures for the mill.
• Develop strong relationships with customers' manufacturing, quality, and engineering personnel.
• Collaborate with operations, sales, and product development to ensure customer satisfaction.
• Aid quality and sales teams with customer PPAP processes.
• Manage and maintain alloy, temper, thickness, and width capability tables for customer grades.
• Collaborate with operations, sales, and product development to ensure customer satisfaction.
• Support development and refinement of Key Process Variables for customer grades.
• Support corrective actions and prepare metallurgical reports for customer issues.
• Participate in OEM and processor audits as needed.
• Contribute to product development and optimization projects.
• Facilitate communication between ADL’s automotive sales team and customer OEM tool shops, Tier 1 stampers/assemblers, and OEM stamping plants for trial inventory management, quality issue resolution, and non-conforming material disposition.
• Routinely participate in OEM product development and technical service/quality meetings.

Requirements

• Proven experience in automotive aluminum sheet supply.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• High energy, team-oriented, and relationship-driven.
• Ability to travel frequently, up to 30-40%.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams without direct reporting authority.
• Experience collaboratively supporting sales/operations personnel and automotive OEMs.
• Strong working knowledge of aluminum flat-rolled circle grid analysis.
• Experience in melting, casting, rolling, coating, and/or quality management of aluminum sheet products.
• Willingness to travel across North America and globally to OEM tooling locations.

Preferred

• Technical experience resolving issues and solving problems with ADL automotive customers and field service representatives.
• Experience working with American domestic automotive producers and Tier 1 and Tier 2 stamping partners.
• Bachelor of Science in Metallurgy, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or Mechanical Engineering.