R&D Engineer

About the Company

Vitro Architectural Glass manufactures a broad range of industry-leading, energy-efficient products such as Solarban®, Sungate®, and Starphire Ultra-Clear® glasses. Collaboration and innovation have been central to our advancements, with a foundation built on trust, teamwork, and shared excitement. The company operates manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. and Mexico, along with one of the world’s largest glass research and development facilities in Pittsburgh, PA, and four residential glass fabrication plants in Canada.

Responsibilities

• Offer technical information or opinions toward solutions.
• Coordinate closely with the building and facilities services group to improve and maintain laboratory equipment.
• Design new products and processes involving technology that is largely unknown and/or not practiced within Vitro or elsewhere in the industry; improve and maintain existing products, sometimes under supervision from a scientist or higher-level colleagues.
• Design and analyze components or assemblies to ensure cost efficiency, manufacturability, and reliability; define process improvements that yield results in safety, quality, cost, and control.
• Work independently with known technologies and develop new technologies under supervision.
• Initiate and maintain relationships with vendors to purchase equipment and supplies, ensuring efficiency and continuity of laboratory operations.
• Assist higher-level professionals in performing assigned phases of work, ranging from defined methods to technical judgment.
• Provide technical guidance to junior professionals or technicians.
• Lead and manage HOSHIN-level projects focused on product or process improvement.
• Analyze and evaluate current equipment and measurement protocols for new products; identify gaps and areas for improvement; design and develop instrumentation to meet those needs.
• Collaborate with other engineers to develop accurate, efficient instrumentation, and data interfaces in accordance with safety, usability, customer expectations, and controls methodologies.
• Design and test prototypes of equipment; develop statistically robust measurement processes; leverage external resources and designs as appropriate.
• Create basic schematics and simulated models to test designs; modify designs to meet specifications and budget requirements.
• Oversee the implementation of new measuring devices and control systems with internal and external resources, ensuring correct installation and testing at production locations; demonstrate statistically robust measurement processes.
• Draft and present formal technical documents, reports, and testing results to managers for approval.
• Draft technical and user manuals for instrumentation.
• Provide training related to devices to employees and/or customers.
• Work collaboratively with controls, production, and quality engineers to implement process control protocols and tools.

Qualifications

• AS/GED plus 14 years of relevant experience, or AS in a technical field plus 10 years of relevant experience, or BS in a technical field plus 3 years of relevant experience, or MS entry-level with a directly applicable degree, otherwise MS plus 1 year or more of relevant experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to plan, organize, and share information in interactions with management, peers, associates, and vendors.
• Ability to troubleshoot, analyze, and resolve problems.
• Must be able to work autonomously as well as in a team setting.
• Computer knowledge required for use of Microsoft Office products.
• Working knowledge of computer-aided design equipment and computerized processes preferred.

Skills

• Desired: Coding skills in at least two programming languages such as Visual Basic, C, C++, C#, VB, MATLAB, Python, etc.
• Fundamental understanding of statistics and process engineering.
• Technical knowledge and experience in Wonderware InTouch, Allen Bradley PLC, and/or other types of control systems.
• Experience with SQL, OSISoft-PI, and Azure Platform, and familiarity with artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts and implementation.
• Demonstrated proficiency with two or more programming languages (e.g., C, C++, Python) and SQL.
• Experience with data interfaces and communication protocols (e.g., TCP/IP) between data acquisition equipment systems.