Assembly Design Manager

About the role

The Manager, Assembly Design Engineering leads a team of Assembly Design Engineers responsible for creating, standardizing, and improving high-performance RF hardware kits and coaxial cable assembly designs. This individual serves as a technical leader and people manager, ensuring the team develops robust, manufacturable, and compliant designs that meet customer, internal, and industry requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Cable Assembly Design Engineers.
• Set priorities, tack team KPI's, drive process improvement, assign work, and ensure engineering resources are aligned to business needs.
• Provide performance feedback, support employee development, and encourage technical growth.
• Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Oversee the design, documentation, and release of cable assemblies, harnesses, and related interconnect products.
• Ensure design work balances form, fit, function, manufacturability, performance, and cost.
• Support the team in evaluating materials, components, and design approaches for demanding mechanical and electrical requirements.
• Review and guide design calculations, simulations, prototype development, and validation activities as needed.
• Support troubleshooting of design, documentation, and production-related issues.
• Develop and implement engineering policies, procedures, and standards to support advanced BOM structures and controlled design practices.
• Establish or improve processes for LRUs, group-A kits, group-B kits, and other complex product structures.
• Drive standardization in design elements, documentation, and product configuration management.
• Ensure the engineering organization has the tools, methods, and controls needed to support repeatable and scalable design release processes.
• Identify gaps in current practices and lead changes that improve quality, consistency, and efficiency.
• Partner closely with Sales, Applications Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, and Operations.
• Support new product development by converting customer and market requirements into manufacturable design solutions.
• Work with internal and external suppliers to improve manufacturability, availability, and cost effectiveness of designs.
• Support resolution of production floor issues, non-conformances, and design-related failures.
• Cook up design deliverables align with schedule and customer expectations.
• Guide the team in applying engineering principles to evaluate tensile, torque, crush, sealing, loss, phase, VSWR, and other critical design characteristics.
• Ensure compliance with applicable customer, industry, and military standards.
• Encourage use of formal problem-solving methods to identify root cause and implement corrective actions.
• Maintain awareness of emerging materials, methods, and technologies relevant to high-performance cable assemblies.
• Support aerospace and defense programs requiring disciplined configuration control, traceability, and compliance with military or customer standards.
• Help ensure the team can support more complex product architectures and qualification requirements.
• Promote strong documentation practices and workmanship standards appropriate for regulated or high-reliability applications.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field.
• 4+ years of experience in cable assembly design, interconnect engineering, manufacturing engineering, or related technical discipline.
• Prior people leadership or engineering management experience preferred.
• Strong knowledge of coaxial cable assembly design principles, materials, and manufacturing methods.
• Experience with RF and microwave test equipment and design validation.
• Experience with MIL-STD-348, IEEE 287 interfaces, MIL-DTL-38999 interconnect systems, and IPC/WHMA-A-620 workmanship standards preferred.
• Familiarity with advanced BOM structures, configuration-controlled products, or kit-based assemblies preferred.
• Experience with LRUs and group-A / group-B kit structures highly desirable.
• Strong understanding of design for manufacturability, standardization, and documentation control.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, DraftSight, SolidWorks, or similar tools.
• Experience with mechanical component design.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, lead change, and communicate effectively across functions.
• Strong judgment, attention to detail, and problem-solving skills.
• Aerospace and Defense industry experience.
• Familiarity with military standards, test requirements, and high-reliability design practices.
• Experience leading process improvement or engineering standardization initiatives.
• Experience with CST or similar RF simulation software.
• Proven ability to build and implement engineering procedures in a growing or evolving organization.