Application Engineering Manager

Company Description For over 50 years, DN Solutions has built the machine tools that shape the world around us, including the cars we drive, the aircraft we fly, and the medical devices that save lives. Today, we're building something even bigger. The Chicago Technical Center is undergoing a multi-million-dollar transformation to become one of North America's premier manufacturing technology centers. Through significant investments from DN Solutions Headquarters and strategic partnerships with industry-leading companies, we are creating an engineering organization focused on advanced manufacturing, automation, digital manufacturing, turnkey solutions, and engineering excellence. This isn't simply another management position. This is an opportunity to help build one of the industry's premier engineering organizations. Job Description The Manager of Applications Engineering serves as the operational leader of the Chicago Technical Center Applications Engineering organization. Reporting directly to the Director of Applications Engineering, this individual will serve as the Director's right hand and be responsible for the day-to-day leadership, execution, and technical operations of the department. The successful candidate will ensure engineering priorities are executed, customer commitments are met, demonstrations are delivered, showroom readiness is maintained, and the engineering team continues operating at a world-class level whether the Director is onsite or supporting strategic initiatives, customers, or other Technical Centers. This position is ideal for someone who enjoys leading people, solving manufacturing challenges, mentoring engineers, and building an organization known for technical excellence. Job Responsibilities - Lead the daily operations of the Applications Engineering Department. - Coordinate engineering priorities, workloads, schedules, and technical resources. - Ensure customer demonstrations, turnkey projects, machine validations, training events, and engineering activities are successfully executed. - Maintain overall readiness of the Chicago Technical Center and ensure showroom machines are customer-ready. - Lead execution of IMTS demonstrations, Open Houses, customer events, and strategic engineering initiatives. - Mentor, coach, and develop Applications Engineers while fostering a culture of accountability, ownership, teamwork, and continuous improvement. - Support customer visits, executive demonstrations, technical presentations, machine evaluations, and manufacturing assessments. - Collaborate with Sales, Service, Operations, Facilities, Marketing, and Executive Leadership to ensure successful project execution. - Build and maintain strong relationships with strategic technology partners. - Develop engineering standards, best practices, and technical documentation. - Identify process improvements and remove obstacles that prevent the engineering team from being successful. - Support recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and development of engineering personnel. - Lead engineering operations and ensure continuity of execution. - Support global engineering initiatives and collaborate with international engineering teams. Job Requirements - Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field preferred. Equivalent hands-on manufacturing experience will be given equal consideration. - Minimum eight years of progressive hands-on experience in CNC machining, manufacturing engineering, applications engineering, machine tool applications, or turnkey manufacturing. - Previous experience as a CNC Machinist, CNC Programmer, Manufacturing Engineer, Applications Engineer, or similar hands-on manufacturing role. - Demonstrated experience leading technical teams while remaining actively engaged in engineering activities. - Extensive hands-on experience with CNC machine setup, programming, prove-out, tooling selection, workholding, fixture design, and process optimization. - Expert k…