CHEP helps move more goods to more people, in more places than any other organization on earth via our 347 million pallets, crates and containers. We employ approximately 13,000 people and operate in 60 countries. Through our pioneering and sustainable share-and-reuse business model, the world’s biggest brands trust us to help them transport their goods more efficiently, safely and with less environmental impact.
What does that mean for you? You’ll join an international organization big enough to take you anywhere, and small enough to get you there sooner. You’ll help change how goods get to market and contribute to global sustainability. You’ll be empowered to bring your authentic self to work and be surrounded by diverse and driven professionals. And you can maximize your work-life balance and flexibility through our Hybrid Work Model.
Key Responsibilities May Include:
- Drive the engineering lifecycle for new and existing physical products, ensuring robust design, testing, validation, and technical delivery.
- Translate strategic product innovation priorities into clear engineering roadmaps, plans, and workstreams aligned with organisational outcomes.
- Lead global engineering teams across product categories, providing coaching, direction, and support to deliver consistently high‑quality outputs.
- Oversee global testing and experimentation activities, ensuring appropriate test design, accurate data collection, and rigorous technical analysis.
- Manage escalations related to technical decisions, resource constraints, and operational challenges, ensuring continuity and delivery of engineering programmes.
- Partner with commercial, marketing, operations, and strategy teams to deliver customer‑focused solutions and support collaborative innovation projects.
- Manage engineering budgets, optimising utilisation of internal resources and external partners, including suppliers, consultancies, and test facilities.
- Strengthen engineering governance by defining success metrics, ensuring high‑quality reporting, and promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams and regions.
Director, Product Engineering — Global Product Innovation (GPI)
Scope: Global: 45 Countries; CHEP and Brambles – all business units; Pallets, Totes, Containers, Auto,
New and Durability and Digital
Lead the global product engineering function within GPI—translating strategic directions into executable plans, delivering rigorous validation and testing, and scaling capabilities across Core and Specialty categories. This role blends strategic leadership with hands‑on mechanical engineering and program management to ensure market fit, commercial viability, and alignment with organizational objectives.
Major / Key Accountabilities
- Strategic alignment & planning: Support the Global Head of Product Innovation and GPI Category Leads in strategic directions and goals; convert GPI outcomes into actionable engineering plans, deliverables, success metrics, and governance (in partnership with GPI Product Operations).
- Lifecycle ownership: Drive the end‑to‑end development of new and existing physical products, ensuring market fit, sustainability impact, commercial viability, and compliance with standards.
- Innovation & collaboration: Foster a high‑performing, innovative culture across engineering, testing, product operations, Sales, Marketing, and Leadership; accelerate growth via experimentation, rapid prototyping, and data‑driven decision‑making.
- Engineering leadership: Line‑manage engineers across Core and Specialty categories; set clear objectives, remove impediments, resolve technical and resource escalations, and coach for performance.
- Metrics & performance: Define engineering success metrics aligned to overall GPI outcomes; monitor and report progress, risks, and course‑corrections.
- Program & facility leadership: Lead the global product innovation support team and facility (IC), acting as a role model in program management of critical technical programs for product development, testing, and experimentation.
- Global programs & delivery: Lead complex global engineering programs; supervise personnel and ensure on‑time delivery of diverse mechanical engineering and testing workstreams.
- Capacity expansion: Grow GPI capacity in innovation—product launches, testing throughput, and external collaboration—to meet strategic demand.
- Customer impact: Partner with CHEP Sales, Marketing, and Leadership to scope and deliver customer projects at the Innovation Center from definition through execution, ensuring measurable value.
- Global collaboration: Manage and collaborate across countries; delegate effectively and contribute directly to cross‑functional teams.
- Budget ownership: Manage and optimize budgets for Innovation Center (IC) and Product Testing Team (PTT); track spend, ROI, and value creation.
- Talent management: Develop engineers and support staff; drive succession planning, skills growth, and engagement.
- Data leadership: Establish core data collection and reporting for product design and testing; ensure high‑quality technical documentation and traceability.
- External partnerships: Collaborate seamlessly with external engineering service providers for specialized analyses, testing, and scale-up.
- Test program development: Define robust test programs—select the right tests, sample sizes, timelines, resources, and budget requirements.
Qualifications & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering preferred, Master’s in Engineering beneficial.
- ~7+ years’ mechanical engineering design and analysis experience in a high‑performance product development environment with strong exposure to product testing and performance analysis;
- 3+ years managing technical staff.
- Demonstrated strength in data analysis, experimental design, technical documentation, and stakeholder communication.
- Hands‑on experience with mechanical equipment, especially laboratory and materials testing equipment.
- Strong 3D CAD background (Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks) with CAE tools to optimize designs.
- Broad project management experience, interfacing with diverse stakeholders; proven ability to manage staff and a large project portfolio with composure and professionalism.
- Broad product design experience across materials and applications, with emphasis on plastics/composites components and assemblies; ability to evaluate material suitability based on mechanical properties.
- Statistics‑driven data analysis (e.g., Minitab, SAS, Statistica) in the context of experimentation, tolerances, and performance metrics.
Desired Experience
- Design/analysis with composites and laminates; packaging design.
- Diverse manufacturing process experience; complex product assembly/configuration management; product data management.
- Product and materials regulatory experience; intellectual property exposure.
- Cost estimating, spend management, and project financial analysis, knowledge of wood as an engineering material.
- Experience leading remote production/design engineering across multiple countries
Skills & Knowledge
- Data management (databases, Product Data Management); technical presentations, analysis, documentation.
- Strong 3D CAD proficiency (Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks); mechanical design, product testing, and evaluation.
- Project management & leadership; customer‑facing credibility.
- Deep understanding of material properties for design & optimization; predictive engineering techniques (CAE), FMEA, statistical analysis, and data interpretation.
- Some experience with structural analysis (FEA) in mechanical engineering design.
- Strategic and original thinker; strong leadership and people management.
- Desire and ability to lead and grow technical and non‑technical staff.
- Outstanding verbal and written communication, including strong presentation skills and customer service.
- Skilled with office productivity tools—especially advanced MS Excel.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we are committed to developing a diverse workforce in which everyone is treated fairly, with respect, and has the opportunity to contribute to business success while realizing his or her potential. This means harnessing the unique skills and experience that each individual brings and we do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state, or local protected class.
Individuals fraudulently misrepresenting themselves as Brambles or CHEP representatives have scheduled interviews and offered fraudulent employment opportunities with the intent to commit identity theft or solicit money. Brambles and CHEP never conduct interviews via online chat or request money as a term of employment. If you have a question as to the legitimacy of an interview or job offer, please contact us at [email protected].
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What We Do
CHEP is a global leader in managed, returnable and reusable packaging solutions, serving many of the world's largest companies in sectors such as consumer goods, fresh produce, beverage and automotive. CHEP’s service is environmentally sustainable and increases efficiency for customers while reducing operating risk and product damage. CHEP’s 7,500-plus employees and 300 million pallets and containers offer unbeatable coverage and exceptional value, supporting more than 500,000 customer touch-points in 49 countries. Our customer portfolio includes global companies and brands such as Procter & Gamble, Sysco, Kellogg's, Kraft, Nestlé, Ford and GM. CHEP is part of Brambles Limited. For more information, visit www.chep.com. Reliability. Flexibility. The success of your business depends on both. With CHEP, you can be confident that you’ll get the equipment you need, when and where you need it. Our scale is unmatched, with more than 110 million pallets and over 530 service centers across North America. So you no longer need to worry about seasonal peaks or unexpectedly high demand. With our broad array of solutions and our pragmatic, roll-up-your-sleeves know-how, we give our consumer goods customers the platforms, the quality, the supply and the support they need to make more money on every unit load. Because everything just works better.
