Senior Applications Engineer

- Senior

Fort Worth, TX

Mining (except Oil and Gas)

About the position

MP Materials is seeking a dynamic and experienced Senior Applications Engineer for its Magnetics business located in Fort Worth, TX. The Applications Engineering team is responsible for working with our external customers and with MP Materials' commercial, engineering, and manufacturing teams to ensure we are delivering the right products, on time, for each application at competitive costs. The Applications Engineering team will review customers' technical needs, recommend the correct products (performance, cost, geometry), understand and be able to explain the competitive landscape internally and to the customer, and contribute to the design and development of the prototyping, measurement and production equipment needed to deliver on customer needs. The Senior Applications Engineer will be action-oriented, willing to get their hands dirty, and have experience in manufacturing. The successful candidate will play a critical role in identifying current and future product value by synthesizing customer needs and market trends, representing the voice of the customer within the broader engineering team, and have a deep understanding of relevant materials, properties and manufacturing processes required for permanent magnets. The successful candidate for this role will understand how customers use the unique properties of rare earth permanent magnets across a variety of end use applications, as well as the broad range of chemical, mechanical, and thermal processes used to produce magnets, magnet assemblies, and electric motors.

Responsibilities

• Acts as the primary technical contact with existing and potential customers in designing, specifying, prototyping, and quoting products.
• Works with customers to transition new products into manufacturing, and scale to high volume.
• Develop models, tools, presentations, and documents to succinctly summarize and communicate with customers.
• Manage the technical interfaces between customers and cross-functional MP Materials teams to design and manufacture rare earth magnets.
• Act as a hands-on member of the engineering team, using excellent communication and organizational skills to guide and inform customer-related activities.
• Interpret, understand, and negotiate product requirements and test methods (e.g., statement of requirements) between MP and customers.
• Synthesize and communicate short and long duration customer project goals based on current business conditions and evolving customer and market needs.
• Identify value opportunities for MP Materials products, to be realized through applications engineering, product or process development, continuous improvement activities, and/or long-term strategic initiatives.
• Other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• BS or higher in mechanical, materials or electrical engineering, or in another relevant engineering discipline.
• Working knowledge of rare earth magnets and/or use applications for permanent magnets (motors, sensors, etc.) and key performance metrics.
• 5+ years' experience in applications engineering or related activities.
• Experience with materials manufacturing, particularly metals or metal powder.
• Experience working directly with external customers to understand technical needs and translate them into operational actions and product specifications.
• Experience partnering with commercial teams to generate product specifications and quotations.
• Ability to effectively communicate across a spectrum of different roles internally and externally, from engineers, to procurement, to senior leaders, to manufacturing operators.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple concurrent projects.
• Expert level user of Microsoft Office suite or similar tools.

Nice-to-haves

• Deep working knowledge of the design of electric devices and/or magnets for electric devices.
• Familiarity with rare earth permanent magnet grades and magnetic properties.
• Deep working knowledge of the manufacturing processes for rare earth permanent magnets.
• Advanced degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or materials science.