Engineering Account Manager

Salary $100k-$120k + Bonus Job Summary The Global Engineering Account Manager is responsible for managing assigned strategic customer accounts through the full lifecycle of the customer relationship, from design review and manufacturing feasibility through tooling coordination, validation, launch, production support, pricing, quality issue resolution, and ongoing account growth. This role serves as the primary technical and commercial bridge between the customer and our client's global manufacturing operations. The position is responsible for understanding customer needs, communicating those needs clearly to our client's manufacturing plants and internal teams, and communicating Design for Manufacturing feedback, technical recommendations, quality requirements, pricing impacts, and production concerns back to the customer. The role is customer-facing, engineering-oriented, and commercially accountable. It requires strong technical judgment, clear communication, disciplined follow-through, and the ability to coordinate work across engineering, quality, production, tooling, supply chain, executive leadership, and international manufacturing partners. The position does not directly supervise Team Members but is expected to lead cross-functional activity and drive accountability across multiple functions and locations. Essential Duties And Responsibilities Customer Relationship and Account Lifecycle Management Serve as the primary point of contact for assigned customer accounts, including one or more major strategic accounts. Own the customer relationship throughout the full lifecycle, including design, quoting, development, validation, launch, production, engineering changes, quality concerns, and account growth. Maintain a deep understanding of customer requirements, product applications, business priorities, technical expectations, and communication preferences. Build and maintain trusted working relationships with customer engineering, sourcing, quality, operations, and leadership contacts. Support growth with existing customers by identifying new opportunities, expanding current programs, and helping position the company for additional business. Support new business development activities involving existing customers; this role does not carry primary responsibility for prospecting or finding new customers. Represent the company professionally in customer meetings, technical reviews, launch discussions, quality reviews, pricing discussions, and executive-level account updates. Ensure customer concerns, risks, and expectations are communicated internally in a clear, timely, and actionable manner. Design Review and Design for Manufacturing Coordination Review customer drawings, specifications, models, tolerances, materials, quality expectations, and technical requirements during the design and development phase. Evaluate product designs for manufacturing feasibility, cost, quality risk, tooling implications, process capability, and production scalability. Communicate customer design intent, application requirements, and critical-to-quality characteristics to the company's engineering, manufacturing, tooling, and quality teams. Coordinate Design for Manufacturing feedback from the company's domestic and international manufacturing operations and communicate that feedback to the customer. Provide technical recommendations directly to customers when appropriate and coordinate technical recommendations from the company's engineering, tooling, quality, and manufacturing teams. Support discussions involving CAD files, 2D drawings, GD&T, tolerances, electrical requirements, material specifications, process capability, and inspection requirements. Help identify design risks that could affect manufacturability, quality, cost, lead time, tooling performance, or production continuity. Recognize that final design approval authority remains with the customer, while ensuring the company provides clear, practical, and well-documented manufacturing input. Tooling, Launch, Validation, and Customer Approval Support Coordinate internal and external activities related to tooling, sampling, validation, qualification, and customer approval requirements. Support tooling-related communication involving domestic and overseas tooling sources. Track launch milestones, open issues, customer deliverables, timing risks, validation needs, and approval status. Coordinate with engineering, quality, production, tooling, supply chain, and manufacturing plants to support successful product launches. Support customer approval processes, including PPAP, first article inspection, qualification runs, process validation, capability studies, customer-specific validation requirements, and other applicable approval activities. Ensure customer expectations for samples, documentation, inspection results, dimensional reports, material certifications, te