Principal Manufacturing Engineer (GA & EOL)

As part of the Manufacturing Engineering team, reporting to the Head of Production Steering and Strategic Innovation, the Principal Manufacturing Engineer provides technical leadership for series manufacturing process development, industrialisation and continuous improvement within an assigned operational area.

The role translates product requirements into safe, capable and repeatable manufacturing processes, supporting programme delivery and stable series production within the McLaren Automotive production environment.

Working across Product Engineering, Production, Quality, Maintenance, Production Planning and Supply Chain, the role leads complex technical problem-solving and the delivery of manufacturing processes, equipment, tooling and operating standards.

It provides technical direction and coaching to manufacturing engineers, manages process readiness through a collaborative relationship with launch teams and drives improvements in safety, quality, delivery, cost and environmental performance.

Responsibilities:

• Provide technical leadership for the assigned manufacturing area, establishing process standards and ensuring robust engineering decisions reflect current knowledge from the series environment.
• Develop and maintain manufacturing process flows, station layouts, work content, cycle-time studies, line balancing and capacity assessments.
• Lead process risk assessment and PFMEA development with cross-functional teams.
• Define technical specifications and acceptance criteria for equipment, tooling, fixtures and production systems.
• Ensure manufacturing processes incorporate machinery safety, ergonomics and appropriate legal and environmental controls.
• Collaborate with NPI teams on manufacturing readiness from prototype builds through launch and ramp-up.
• Lead structured problem solving for complex manufacturing and quality issues.
• Manage manufacturing engineering changes, ensuring process documentation, tooling, equipment settings, validation evidence and training requirements are updated.
• Lead technical projects within agreed scope, timing and budget.
• Monitor process performance, including right first time quality, scrap, rework, cycle time, downtime and throughput.
• Provide technical mentoring, peer reviews and coaching for manufacturing engineers.

Requirements:

• Degree in Manufacturing, Mechanical, Automotive or a related engineering discipline.
• Proven manufacturing engineering experience in automotive or a comparable complex manufacturing environment.
• Experience of low-volume, high-value product manufacturing and balancing product complexity, process capability, quality and investment requirements.
• Strong knowledge of lean manufacturing, process planning, line balancing, capacity analysis, standardised work, ergonomics and continuous improvement.
• Practical experience with PFMEA, control plans, process validation, measurement system analysis, statistical process control and structured root-cause analysis.
• Experience specifying and commissioning manufacturing equipment, tooling and fixtures.
• Ability to interpret engineering standards, drawings, tolerances, product specifications and manufacturing data.

Benefits:

• Structured career development framework
• 25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday
• Enhanced company pension scheme
• Discretionary annual bonus award
• Private medical insurance and health cash plan
• Life assurance benefit
• Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle
• Generous parental leave policies
• A range of wellbeing initiatives