Lead Engineer - Fleet Engineering RCA Leader (Machine Head)

Job Description Summary

If you are a MECHANICAL engineer who loves solving tough problems at the root, this is your stage. As our Fleet Engineering RCA Leader – Machine Head, you will own wing to wing RCAs on different components (main shaft, bedplate, gearbox, main/yaw bearings, and more), partner cross functionally, and turn insights into systemic, fleet level improvements. Bring your RCA toolkit (Lean, 8D, Shainin, Six Sigma), your mechanical depth, and your drive to close actions—and see your work directly improve availability, reliability, and customer trust.

The Fleet Engineering RCA Leader, Machine Head will own, execute and resolve assigned RCAs related to Machine Head mechanical systems (Main shaft, bedplate, gearbox (GBX), Main bearing, Yaw bearing, among others) from a technical & process perspective. This role can be viewed as a "wing-to-wing" mechanical major product issue technical ownership, driving root cause identification, corrective action development and support the implementation of systematic improvements across our fleet. This will be achieved by partnering with different functions such as Design Engineering, Sourcing, Parts, Services, Warranty and Quality, and by using key root cause principles and disciplines such as Lean, 8D, Shainin and/or Six Sigma — grounded in strong mechanical engineering judgment.

The Fleet Engineering RCA Leader, Machine Head will be responsible for driving sustained product improvement throughout our contracted fleet, striving to build the world’s best running fleet. The RCA Leader will develop, own, implement, and support product quality initiatives on Machine Head components, while driving process improvements, closed loop lessons learned with our design segment partners across the product life cycle.

Job Description

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Wing‑to‑wing ownership of Machine Head mechanical product issues for assigned RCA’s.
• Own, lead, execute, and resolve assigned RCAs in Machine Head mechanical systems from both technical and operational perspective, to drive root cause analysis to achieve timely and robust issue resolution, addressing emerging issues and reducing Major Component Upgrades (MCUs) for all Machine Head components.
• Define and implement fast track containment for the assigned RCAs.
• Develop effective relationships with the Fleet Performance, NPI Engineering (Machine Head), Field, Sourcing, Parts and Quality teams along with other resources in Customer Solutions to foster the best solutions to our fleet problems.
• Identifies and secures the roles and functions required as part of the RCA team, escalating when required.
• Keeps tracking of the impact of assigned RCAs on availability, working with MCU team to identify failure rates and lead the efforts to reduce failure rates on major components such as Gearbox, Main bearing or Yaw bearings.
• Keeps tracking of defined assigned RCA KPIs, specially on OTD.
• Technical expertise on RCA related communications, providing clear, concise, and consistent messages for internal and external Customers.
• Support escalated PAC cases related with assigned RCA’s, while owning the general disposition for RCA related PAC cases.
• Support RCA related SAFER Actions, while owning the definition of a potential general approach to reduce unnecessary re-work for future potential similar cases (i.e. identifying reference case). 
• Partners with Sourcing on vendor recovery of supplier-caused defects.
• Support commercial and technical discussions with our suppliers to achieve field quality issue resolution.
• Provide regular updates on RCA progress and related action plan in Quality Suite (RCA reporting platform).
• Owns the definition of the RCA necessary budget for PO’s and cost/benefit impact evaluation, owning the PO workflow related process to get approvals and issue the necessary PO’s along the RCA.
• Maintain thorough and well-organized documentation of the RCA within Fleet Engineering folder.
• Owns the RCA report, providing regular updates at every step.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or technical discipline from an accredited institution.
• Proven experience leading and closing mechanical RCAs (8D, Shainin, Lean, Six Sigma or similar methodologies).
• Experience in the wind industry is preferred.

Desired Characteristics

• Previous deep technical understanding on Yaw systems, Drivetrain, Main Bearings, GBXs and/or HPU and other auxiliary systems used within Machine Head environment.
• Detailed understanding of the product development cycle.
• Detailed understanding of the 8D problem solving process.
• Positive, resourceful, clear and strategic thinking problem solver mindset. Able to think outside of the box to bring creative, sustainable solutions to complex scenarios.
• Proven RCA technical expertise and project closure.
• Technical Versatility and ability to learn technology outside of one's specialty.
• Ability and willingness to travel 10% of the time.
• Ability and willingness to climb a wind turbine.
• Root Cause Analysis Training or Certification (8-D, Apollo, Shainin or similar).
• Statistically literate and familiar with quality concepts and tools (Six-sigma BB, Lean, etc.).
• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Product reliability mindset.
• Strong field and customer mind-set. Experience with internal and/or external customer communications, particularly with product quality topics like RCAs.
• Prior team management experience (either direct report or indirect reports), with influential leadership experience with credibility, the ability to partner, energize and focus teams to deliver on priorities.
• Self-starter, with personal ownership and accountability.
• Ability to understand business processes, issues, and concerns and translate into solutions.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment and highly matrixed environments.
• Master’s Degree or above in Engineering from an accredited university or college.

** For candidates applying to a U.S. based position, the pay range for this position is between $98,400.00 USD and $164,000.00 USD Annual.  The Company pays a geographic differential of 110%, 120% or 130% of salary in certain areas. The specific pay offered may be influenced by a variety of factors, including the candidate’s experience, education, and skill set.

Bonus eligibility : discretionary annual bonus.

This posting is expected to remain open for at least seven days after it was posted on Monday, March 23rd.

Additional Information

Relocation Assistance Provided: No