Job Description

The Applications Engineer is responsible for all aspects of the inquiry-to-order (ITO) processes and works closely with global sales, engineering, manufacturing, finance, and product teams to translate customer requirements into competitive offerings and achieve sales booking targets. The position is located in Souderton, PA and reports to the Director of Global Sales.

The candidate should have strong technical and commercial acumen, a relentless desire to win and satisfy customer needs, a strong sense of ownership, a work process/continuous improvement mindset, and ability to work in a fast-paced technical and commercial environment in an organized manner.

Responsibilities

• Working with the Salesperson assigned to a customer account, obtain and understand customer technical and commercial requirements and define a bid approach for each opportunity. Clarify requirements with key customer contacts such as process, machinery, procurement, and project stakeholders.
• Perform sizing and selection of the appropriate diaphragm compression systems and options that maximize the competitive position. Collaborate with Engineering and Product teams where there is risk or product gaps that need to be mitigated.
• Review customer and regional specifications and standards (IEC, ATEX, CE, etc) and create appropriate compliance, exception, deviation, and clarification summaries. Strive to create and reuse standardized compliance options for future reuse for repeat regions and customers.
• Create detailed costing that considers scope of equipment, specifications, quality of bills of materials, escalation, technical and execution risk, scope uncertainty, bid quality, etc.
• Develop lead time estimates and execution plans that incorporate bidding requirements, assumptions, and value improvement opportunities and mitigate schedule risk.
• Working with the Salesperson, work up priced commercial proposals that meet margin expectations and maximize chances to win. Perform project cash flow analysis if required. Submit for necessary approvals as required.
• Working with Salesperson, develop proposal to send to customer that compiles proposed scope, pricing, delivery, options summaries, performance, aftermarket parts and service options, etc. Incorporate analysis of total cost of ownership and other differentiation and competitive positioning to ensure value proposition to customer is clear.
• Use Salesforce CRM to track all bidding opportunities, and status of bid submittals. In collaboration with Sales team, maintain a forecast of bookings, revenue, and associated hours and material for sales and operation planning (S&OP).
• Develop and maintain budgetary pricing sheets, pricing reference standards, and underlying costed reference bills of material and execution taxonomies. Collaborate with Finance, Engineering, and Manufacturing to ensure they are accurate and competitive.
• Compile bidding lessons-learned/ closed lost reports, and other relevant market intel, and provide any insights for the benefit of the Product and Sales teams to drive competitive improvements.
• When customers place orders, manage the order acknowledgment and project kickoff process.
• Maintain and improve work processes, procedures, tools, and templates relating to the inquiry-to-order (ITO) work processes, and monitor and report out key performance metrics such as bid cycle time, effort, bid win rates, etc.
• The candidate will be cross-trained on how to create aftermarket parts and service offerings to support not only new equipment bids but also to help balance bidding workload between aftermarket and new equipment teams.

Qualifications

• BS Engineering (Mechanical, Chemical, other) or equivalent.
• 3+ years of technical application engineering experience ideally in industrial machinery and hydrogen mobility spaces.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, independent, self-starter. Capable of managing multiple opportunities in various stages and ranges of complexity with sales cycles typically from 6-24 months with multiple touch points with stakeholders along that timescale.
• Outstanding written, verbal, and presentation skills. Ability to create compelling proposals and present solutions to customers at a technical level is critical.
• Proficiency in Salesforce or similar CRM, MS Office and ability to parse and analyze data efficiency.
• Ability to travel up to 25% to meet customers and PDC functions and support the sales team.
• Flexibility of working hours. There are some territories that won’t align with local time zone that will require meetings outside of typical business hours.

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

PDC Machines is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer. All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

If you have a disability and need a reasonable accommodation, please contact the Senior Director of Human Resources at 267-609-5414 or Hr@pdcmachines.com. PDC Machines is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals.