Director Partner Engineering Jobs in Michigan (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary

The Director of Engineering - Product Launch is responsible for leading and overseeing the successful launch of all McLaren-developed products into Linamar manufacturing facilities. This role provides technical and organizational leadership during the critical launch phase, ensuring designs are fully industrialized, transferable, and capable of meeting quality, cost, and timing objectives. The Director partners closely with cross-functional and cross-site stakeholders to drive launch readiness, mitigate risk, and achieve stable production ramp-up across multiple Linamar locations.

Responsibility

• Define and develop product development organizational structure and capabilities for Priority 1 products.

• Directly manages others and is responsible for staffing, driving performance of each direct report and the team through yearly STAR DGO's.

• Own end-to-end engineering execution for the launch phase of all McLaren products transferring into Linamar manufacturing facilities. 

• Serve as the engineering authority for launch readiness, ensuring products are fully industrialized and design intent is clearly communicated and transferred. 

• Establish, deploy, and govern a standardized global launch framework for McLaren-to-Linamar product introductions. 

• Act as the primary engineering interface between McLaren Engineering, Linamar receiving plants, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and Program Management teams. 

• Lead cross-functional launch reviews, including DFMEA/PFMEA alignment, process readiness, run-at-rate, and PPAP approval. 

• Ensure product designs meet manufacturability, tooling, automation, capacity, and cycle-time requirements at receiving facilities. 

• Oversee tooling and equipment strategies, supporting buy-off, validation, and production readiness for launch builds. 

• Accountable for engineering support to achieve first-time quality and stable ramp-up performance at launch. 

• Ensure compliance with customer requirements, regulatory standards, and internal Linamar quality systems. 

• Lead structured root cause analysis and implementation of permanent corrective actions for launch-related issues. 

• Define, track, and report key launch performance indicators including timing, quality, cost, scrap, and ramp-up metrics. 

• Provide clear risk assessments, mitigation plans, and executive-level launch status updates. 

• Capture lessons learned and deploy best practices to improve future product launches and engineering transfers. 

• Drive continuous improvement in launch processes, documentation standards, and engineering handover methodologies. 

• Build organizational capability in advanced product launch, APQP execution, and global manufacturing transfer. 

• Partner with senior leadership to align launch execution with McLaren and Linamar strategic and commercial objectives. 

This job description is intended to convey information essential to understanding the scope of this position and it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, responsibilities or working conditions associated with the position. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Academic/Educational Requirements

Bachelor's degree in engineering and 10+ years of related automotive experience. Master's degree in technical field preferred. Must demonstrate increases in responsibility

Required Skills/Experience

• Extensive understanding of driveline/powertrain technology and business. Understandings of engineering disciplines and processes.

• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret the most complex documents. Ability to communicate effectively to employees. Ability to make effective and persuasive speeches and presentations on complex topics to customers, senior management, public groups and/or boards of directors.

• Ability to comprehend and apply advanced mathematics principles. Ability to work with concepts such as equations, limits, statistics and engineering tools.

• Ability to apply principles of logical or scientific thinking to a wide range of intellectual and practical problems. Ability to deal with nonverbal symbolism (formulas, scientific equations, graphs, etc.), in its most difficult phases. Ability to apply and direct appropriate use of problem-solving methods.

Working Conditions

• These physical demands are representative of the physical requirements necessary for an employee to successfully perform the essential functions. Reasonable accommodation can be made to enable people with disabilities to perform the described essential functions.

• The employee may lift and/or move items up to 30 pounds.

•  While performing the responsibilities, the employee is required to talk and hear. The employee is often required to sit and use their hands and fingers, to handle or feel and to manipulate keys on a keyboard.

• The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, climb or balance, and to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl. 

• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.

• Work in a well-ventilated environment with adequate lighting and temperature.

• The employee will be occasionally exposed to outside temperatures.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally exposed to moving mechanical parts and vehicles. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate.

• This position may require up to 20% travel

Please note: All schedules and changes to working hours must be approved by the department manager. Schedule is subject to change based on discretion of department manager. 

Facility Specific

Ensure compliance with all legislative requirements in the facility's geographic location including but not limited to: 

• ISO 45001: Health and Safety management system standard.
• ISO 14001: Environmental Management system standard.
• IATF 16949 Technical Specification Management and Linamar Quality Basics system standards.

Ensure compliance with Linamar's internal operating system known as 'GOS': The Global Operating System

Support, Foster, Promote and Demonstrate Linamar's Core Values and Leadership Behaviours

Maintain department 5S requirements.