Senior Mechanical Hardware Engineer – ECU Connectors & Interfaces

**Job Description** ### The Role At General Motors, we are reinventing the vehicle through electrification, centralized computing, and software-defined technologies. The Central Compute Hardware Mechanical team develops the mechanical foundation for advanced ECU platforms, leading enclosure design, thermal management, and EMI mitigation to deliver reliable, scalable hardware solutions for future vehicle architectures. We are seeking a **Senior Mechanical Hardware Engineer** to lead the design, development, and integration of ECU connector and header solutions supporting power distribution, high-speed data, communications, RF, and I/O interfaces. Leveraging ECU architecture as a foundation, this role focuses on technical ownership of connector systems, driving the development of terminals, bus bars, sealing solutions, material selections, and connector-to-housing integration strategies. The ideal candidate will provide end-to-end mechanical leadership for connector hardware, ensuring robust electrical performance, environmental protection, manufacturability, and production readiness. This engineer will collaborate closely with electrical and systems engineers, PCB designers, packaging teams, manufacturing organizations, and suppliers to deliver reliable, high-quality ECU connector solutions that meet vehicle-level performance, durability, and assembly requirements. ### ### Key Responsibilities - Lead mechanical development of ECU headers and connector interfaces for power, high-speed signals, communication signals, RF signals, and I/O, ensuring compatibility with vehicle packaging, electrical architecture, environmental conditions, and ECU enclosure constraints. - Own mechanical design of connector-related content from concept through production release, including connector housings, integrated or discrete headers, terminal retention features, bus bar interfaces, seals, gaskets, and attachment features to the ECU housing. - Define and develop connector terminal architectures and bus bar solutions with focus on current-carrying capability, retention robustness, manufacturability, assembly robustness, and integration to PCB and housing systems. - Select and specify materials for connector terminals, conductive elements, insulators, sealing components, and housing interfaces based on mechanical performance, temperature exposure, corrosion risk, environmental sealing needs, and manufacturing process compatibility. - Develop sealing strategies for connector-to-housing interfaces, including water management, compression control, stack-up definition, and design features required to achieve robust environmental performance in automotive use cases. - Create and maintain high-quality 3D CAD models and 2D drawings in NX for connector, header, seal, and interface components, with CAD and Teamcenter used as enabling tools to support sound technical design decisions. - Apply GD&T, tolerance stack analysis, and critical-to-function callouts to connector and header designs to ensure repeatable fit, terminal position accuracy, sealing performance, and manufacturability. - Coordinate closely with electrical engineers and PCB designers on connector pinout constraints, PCB attachment strategy, soldering or alternate mounting concepts, grounding paths, shielding interfaces, and packaging of high-speed and power connections into complete electromechanical systems. - Support mechanical aspects of EMI-aware connector and enclosure integration, including interface geometry, grounding features, shielding continuity, and packaging provisions that enable robust system-level EMI performance. - Develop and execute design verification plans for connector and header systems, including proof-of-concept testing, fit and retention checks, sealing evaluations, prototype builds, and test result-driven design updates. - Work with analysis teams and technical specialists to prepare inputs for structural, vibration, and thermal evaluations where connector and interf…