Product Application Engineer Jobs in Indiana (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:

This entry level/early career professional, dual customer/product focused position serves as the technical liaison between OEMs and represents our customers during new product development programs. Applying Cummins' products to customer vehicles requires the development of technical specifications, implementing new design configurations, and delivering high performance, low-cost equipment and system solutions integrated with customers' products in a variety of applications. Integrating high quality and optimized customer solutions requires the interaction with sales and marketing teams.

Key Responsibilities:

Investigates integration and installation problems, understands causal mechanisms, recommends appropriate action, owns problem resolution and documents results with guidance from more experienced team members. Applies and supports the improvement of processes such as Installation Quality Assurance, OEM integration and product selection and tools such as Advisor, Cummins OnLine Specifications (COLS) and Global Customer Engineering (GCE) required to support the processes and enable high quality decision making. Obtains input and negotiates with Subject Matter Experts and Value Package Introduction (VPI) Teams and delivers product data and installation requirements to Application Engineers and OEMs. Makes decisions in the areas of product selection, design, and integration that impact OEM machine performance, optimization and quality. Develops strong working relationships with customer technical counterparts to serve as their primary liaison to deliver product technical information, manage product specifications, communicate product change information, conduct installation issue resolutions and facilitate customer requests Applies in-depth product, application and market knowledge to support Original Equipment Manufacter product selection and equipment design Translates customer needs and "voice of the customer" into functional product requirements Serves as customer/market advocate inside Cummins during participation in new product development programs, design reviews and product change request processes Ensures products are applied and installed correctly to meet customer system requirements and environments Assures installation quality by validating prototype machine performance and ensuring installations meet Cummins requirements Owns problem resolution for moderately complex components, products, systems, subsystems or services with technical complexity and ambiguity increasing as experience is gained in the role. Provides independent execution of established work processes and systems, while still developing technology or product knowledge; engages with the improvement of systems and processes. Involves minimal direct management of people, but could involve the coordination and direction of work amongst technicians and/or temporary student employees. Contributes effectively toward team goals, exhibits influence within a work group and continues to develop proficiency in the competency areas critical to success in the role.

Core Responsibilities

• Component Integration - support technical integration of CCS components onto customer engines, verifying customer requirements are achieved (e.g., engine performance, emissions, durability, transient response).
• Application Approval - gather and document the information necessary to confirm a given application is suitable for signoff approval and release into the market.
• System-Level Failure Analysis - lead or support system-level diagnostics and failure analysis, ensuring robust root cause identification, corrective actions, and validation plans are put in place to protect the customer.

Skill Requirements

• Communicates Effectively - Understands multi-mode communications and how to convey a clear message to varied audiences.
• Collaborates - Builds partnerships and works collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives.
• Problem Solving - Familiar with various tools and approaches used to identify the root cause of a problem and work through resolution steps in a systematic way.
• Systems Thinking - Understands the concept of system interaction, boundary diagrams and how different systems or parts interact with each other. Able to look at a system and understand what physics might be transpiring.

Preferred Skills

• Prior Air Handling / Engine knowledge or experience is a plus but not a firm requirement.

College Job type: Entry Level Full-time

Subfunction:Customer Engineering

Degree level: Bachelor

Educational Program: Mechanical Engineering

Start date: June/July 2027, depending on graduate availability.

Job Skill Requirements:

• Communicates Effectively - Understands multi-mode communications and how to convey a clear message to varied audiences.
• Collaborates - Builds partnerships and works collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives.
• Problem Solving - Familiar with various tools and approaches used to identify the root cause of a problem and work through resolution steps in a systematic way.
• Systems Thinking - Understands the concept of system interaction, boundary diagrams and how different systems or parts interact with each other. Able to look at a system and understand what physics might be transpiring.

Required Work Location: On-site with Flexibility

Competencies: 
Machine Integration and Optimization - Combines various parts or sub-systems into a whole to achieve the output most desired by the customer; applies Cummins' installation requirements using our standard tools, processes and identified best practices to ensure optimization of performance, reliability, cost and quality; analyzes technical issues using proven problem-solving and troubleshooting techniques for rapid resolution. 
Machine Operation and Support - Evaluates the operation of the system by the user through monitoring system performance, addressing system failures or performance concerns, reacting to evolving user needs, and technology changes; proactively and systematically responds to operational issues which contribute significantly to user satisfaction and operational cost management. 
Product Application Support - Ensures new product information is available by developing and managing accurate and complete technical content in a timely manner to support our customers and the business; provides new options through management of technical systems to support sales to all of our markets; defines installation requirements and develops innovative tools with in-depth, cross-system knowledge and industry experience for successful design and integration. 
Product Function Modeling, Simulation and Analysis - Impacts product design decisions through the utilization and/or interpretation of computational tools and methods that predict the capability of a product's function relative to its system, sub-system and/or component level requirements. 
Product Installation Quality - Identifies and applies ways to improve machine integration to minimize rework and deliver the best product; applies standard Cummins processes based on the experience and knowledge of product installation experts; ensures that products are installed correctly and meet requirements through an installation review process. 
Product Problem Solving - Solves product problems using a process that protects the customer; determines the assignable cause; implements robust, data-based solutions; and identifies the systemic root causes and recommended actions to prevent problem reoccurrence. 
Product Selection - Guides customers to the best product offerings for their markets and applications; offers best-fit solutions to customers by optimizing product specifications to make Cummins' offerings easy to install into new applications; represents features and benefits of products in terms that customers understand; ensures Cummins' products aren't misapplied through using Cummins' technical information systems, local and application requirements. 
Technical Customer Management - Represents Cummins to our customers by being the interface for all technical aspects; provides engineering data, documentation and training to customers to support the design and integration of equipment; ensures that the customer's business is not interrupted by managing Cummins' product changes through the use of our change processes and regular communications with Product Development and the customer. 
Collaborates - Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives. 
Communicates effectively - Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences. 
Customer focus - Building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions. 
Decision quality - Making good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward. 
Drives results - Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances. 
Self-development - Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels. 
Values differences - Recognizing the value that different perspectives and cultures bring to an organization. 
Cross-Functional Design Integration - Translates the value package requirements that include the voices of many stakeholders into virtual designs, and communicates the capability of the design through an approved cross-functional design review. 
Product Verification and Validation Management - Develops product systems validation plans from a variety of inputs to identify failure modes, while managing product risk and relative priority; negotiates product requirements against capability to guide project scope; evaluates analytical, simulation and physical test results to verify product capability and validate requirements; assesses legacy versus proposed system solution capabilities and produces recommendations with technical documentation to support product decisions. 
System Requirements Engineering  - Uses appropriate methods and tools to translate stakeholder needs into verifiable requirements to which designs are developed; establishes acceptance criteria for the system of interest through analysis, allocation and negotiation; tracks the status of requirements throughout the system lifecycle; assesses the impact of changes to system requirements on project scope, schedule, and resources; creates and maintains information linkages to related artifacts. 
Systems Thinking - Defines the system of interest by drawing the boundaries, identifying its context within its environment, its interfaces, and that it has a lifecycle to aid in planning the problem statement, scope and deliverables ; analyzes linkages and interactions between elements that comprise the system of interest by using appropriate methods, models and integration of outcomes to understand the system, predict its behavior and devise modifications to it in order to produce the desired effects. 
Technical Documentation - Documents information based on knowledge gained as part of technical function activities; communicates to stakeholders with the goal of enabling improved technical productivity and effective knowledge transfer to others who were not originally part of the initial learning. 
Education, Licenses, Certifications: 
College, university, or equivalent Bachelor's degree in Engineering or appropriate STEM field is required. 
Post-graduate (Master's) degree relevant to this discipline area may be required for select roles. 
This position may require licensing for compliance with export controls or sanctions regulations. 
Experience: 
Entry level/Early career professional. Preferred candidates would have relevant experience working in either a temporary student employment environment (intern, co-op, or other extracurricular team activities) or as an early career professional in a relevant technical discipline area. Knowledge of MS Office tools is also preferred

U.S. Early Careers Eligibility Requirements:

Exempt Entry Level: Designed for external candidates within 2 years of completing their highest level of degree (Bachelor, Master, PhD, MBA, or JD) from an accredited U.S. college/university, and currently reside within the continental U.S.

International Student Eligibility (U.S. based roles): F-1 visa students must have approved Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or Occupational Practical Training (OPT) before their Early Career assignment begin. CPT/OPT must relate to their degree and be authorized by their university. Students are responsible for securing this approval through their school's international office.