Senior Product Engineer - Chillers (onsite)
About the role
Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, seeks a driven and technical Senior Product Engineer to join their Air-Cooled Centrifugal Chillers team at the Advanced Development and Engineering Center in New Freedom, PA.
Responsibilities
Design-to-Factory Bridge: Serve as the primary technical interface between the air cooled centrifugal design engineering team and the global network of air cooled centrifugal manufacturing facilities—Stiva (Monterrey, MX), Pune (India), Izmir (Turkey), and Guangzhou (China)—ensuring that engineering intent is fully translated into executable factory process.
Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, and Production teams across factory sites on-site and remotely to resolve drawing conflicts, tolerance concerns, and producibility issues in existing product documentation.
Participate in Change Control Board (CCB) reviews; author and process Engineering Change Notices (ECNs) with full factory impact analysis including effectivity date planning, BOM accuracy, and work instruction alignment.
Work closely with Contract Engineering teams to ensure that customer-specific modifications to standard product are engineered within factory capability constraints.
Quality Improvement: Own recurring and systemic quality issues on the air cooled centrifugal product line, driving root cause analysis through structured methodologies (8D, A3) and translating findings into permanent engineering corrective actions.
Implement DFMEA updates, tolerance studies, and design-level countermeasures for in-production quality defects identified through factory audits, warranty data, or field feedback.
Partner with the Quality Engineering team to disposition nonconforming material and determine engineering accept/reject criteria.
Support PPAP activities for component or supplier changes that result from quality-driven engineering modifications.
Design for Manufacturability (DFM) Improvements: Identify DFM gaps in existing product designs that result in assembly difficulty, rework, scrap, or extended factory cycle time, and champion engineering changes to address them.
Participate in DFM review events for product line changes, representing the factory's practical assembly perspective and ensuring new configurations can be built reliably at rate.
Work with Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering to validate that DFM improvements deliver measurable improvement on the production floor.
Cost Management: Identify and lead cost reduction opportunities within the existing air cooled centrifugal product line, including material substitution, specification rationalization, component standardization, and BOM simplification.
Develop engineering cases for value engineering changes, providing technical justification, risk assessment, and implementation plans to gain cross-functional approval.
Track implemented cost improvement projects against savings targets; maintain project status visibility for leadership reporting.
Engage with Supply Chain and Procurement to evaluate supplier-driven alternatives, ensure engineering requirements are maintained, and qualify new parts into the product.
PTS and Field Support: Provide engineering support to the Product Technical Support (PTS) team for escalated field issues on air cooled centrifugal product, including analysis of field failure reports, return material evaluation, and development of field-applicable corrective actions.
Author and support issuance of technical communications, service advisories, and field upgrade kits as needed.
Support occasional field visits to investigate high-priority customer issues requiring engineering-level analysis.
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or closely related engineering discipline.
7 years of experience in product engineering, sustaining engineering, or manufacturing engineering for complex mechanical equipment—preferably in HVAC, refrigeration, or rotating machinery.
Working knowledge of vapo+r compression refrigeration systems and the mechanical and thermodynamic principles governing centrifugal chiller performance.
Proven experience executing engineering changes in a manufacturing environment, including BOM management, drawing updates, and cross-functional coordination through change control processes.
Familiarity with SAP or equivalent ERP systems for BOM management, material status, and engineering documentation.
Experience with quality problem-solving tools (8D, A3, DFMEA) and demonstrated ability to drive issues to root cause and permanent corrective action.
Preferred
Direct experience with air cooled centrifugal chiller products, including familiarity with compressor staging, heat exchanger design, and refrigerant circuit architecture.
Experience in a factory-connected product engineering role (factory product engineer, sustaining engineer, or DFM engineer) in which direct engagement with manufacturing operations was a primary job function.
Familiarity with JCI engineering governance processes including ECN, CCB, P-status lifecycle, and PLM/Windchill documentation standards.
Experience supporting PTS or field engineering functions, including analysis of field failure data and development of field corrective actions.
Payscale Range
Hiring Salary Range: $90,000 - $130,000 (Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.)
Benefits
This position includes a competitive benefits package. The posted salary range reflects the target compensation for this role. However, we recognize that exceptional candidates may bring unique skills and experiences that exceed the typical profile. If you believe your background warrants consideration beyond the stated range, we encourage you to apply.