Mechanical Design Engineer

Job Description:\n\nMechanical Design Engineer Product Design · Technical Support Engineering · Supplier Development Level: Junior to mid level design engineer.

Title and pay set by experience, with room to move up for a stronger candidate.

The role is built to grow — see “How This Role Grows” below.

Location: West Haven, CT (on site) Reports to: Engineering Manager Type: Full time, exempt About Us Woodland Power Products designs and manufactures the Cyclone Rake — lawn and leaf vacuums, built in Connecticut and sold direct to homeowners since 1997.

We are a small, hands-on engineering team where one engineer owns a project from concept through production release, designed, prototyped, tested, and supported in house.

We are a customer service driven company, and that is not a slogan on the wall: the work you do this week can be in a customer’s hands next week.

Who Does Well Here This is a building job, not a caretaking job.

The engineer in this seat owns a problem from the first customer photo to the released drawing, and would rather make the fix than file the ticket.

The work is hands-on and fast: a bracket you draw this week can be bolted to a customer’s mower next week.

We write things down.

We measure ourselves against the dates we committed to.

We expect you to ask “is this the right way to do this?” out loud, and to bring a better idea when you have one.

If you want a small team where what you build shows up in a customer’s yard, you’ll like it here.

If you’re looking for a place to keep an existing product line running, you won’t.

AI Is Not Optional Here — Read This Before You Apply We use AI every day, in everything, and we expect you to.

Not as a search box: as a working partner you understand well enough to know what it is good at, where it fails, and how to check it.

The engineer you would be replacing was one of the best AI users in the company.

That is the bar.

To apply, include specific examples of how you have used AI, personally and professionally: what you did, what you built, what it changed, and what went wrong.

Two or three real examples are enough.

Applications without them will not be considered.

If you have not done this, or it does not interest you, do not apply.

You could be the best engineer we have ever interviewed and you would not do well here.

What we are looking for, in three words: adoption — it is everywhere in your work; insight — you get things out of it we did not have, and you understand how it got there; aggressive use — you push it into places it has not been yet.

Position Summary You will design and detail sheet metal, welded, and molded plastic components, create production ready drawings for outside suppliers, build and test prototypes, and support existing products in manufacturing.

The role has three sides, and we want someone genuinely interested in all three: product design ownership from concept through production release; technical support engineering, solving customer fitment and hookup problems that no catalog part covers; and supplier work alongside our procurement team on quoting, first articles, tooling, and cost.

AI tools are standard equipment on this team.

We use them every day, and we expect this engineer to be fluent with them and to help the team get better with them.

The Kind of Problems You’d Work On • An accessory that has to fit hundreds of machines we don’t make, where there is no true universal and the job is finding the smallest set of parts that covers the most.

• A cost-down redesign of a mechanism that has far more custom parts than it needs.

• A customer fitment problem that arrives as photos, a model number, and half the measurements, and needs an answer this week.

• New machine types, including electric tractors and zero-turns, that break assumptions our current hardware makes.

Responsibilities — Design and Development • Design components and assemblies in 3D CAD: sheet metal parts, weldments, fabricated frames, and rotomolded or injection molded plastic parts.

• Produce fully dimensioned manufacturing drawings with correct tolerancing and GD&T for release to outside suppliers.

• Perform basic structural and fatigue analysis (FEA and hand calculations) before committing to prototypes or tooling.

• Build, instrument, and test prototypes in house and in the field; document results and drive design changes from what you find.

• Design universal and semi universal accessories — mounting brackets, adapters, hitches, and support hardware — that must fit a broad range of tractor and mower configurations.

• Design fixtures, gages, and simple tooling to support production and assembly.

• Create and process engineering change orders; maintain part numbers, bills of material, and drawing revisions; track project status and committed dates in the company project management system.

Responsibilities — Technical Support Engineering Engineering support for customer service is seasonal.

Most of the year it is a small share of the week.

From September through November it can be close to half, and in those months it is the priority.

We say that plainly because it is the part of this job people either like or don’t.

Our machines attach to hundreds of ride-on tractor and zero turn mower configurations, and customers regularly arrive with a hookup or fitment case that no catalog part covers.

How that works day to day: • Intake and triage.

Support escalates cases with customer photos, measurements, model information, and call notes.

You respond the same or next business day — either with an existing solution or with a clear plan and timeline.

• Direct customer contact when warranted.

Phone or email with a customer, or joining a support call, to pin down dimensions, clearances, and interfaces.

Explaining a solution in plain language to a non engineer matters as much as the design itself.

• Design and release the fix.

Design the adapter, bracket, hitch, or mount; generate flat patterns; order laser cut parts through our online supplier; then coordinate forming, welding, and powder coating with the in house shop team.

• Close the loop.

Every solution goes into the knowledge base the support team already answers from: drawing, photos, applicable machine models, install notes.

Our fitment data and rules live there too, and part of this job is making them better.

The measure is simple: fewer cases need an engineer at all.

• Feed it back into the product.

When a one off starts recurring, make the case to convert it into a released production part or kit, with volume, cost, and demand data behind it.

Several of our current catalog accessories started exactly this way.

• Root cause, not patches.

Partner with manufacturing and customer service on root cause analysis for field returns and warranty issues, and drive corrective design or supplier action.

How We Use AI — and How You Will AI is an integral part of our engineering workflow, not a pilot program.

We use Claude daily and are actively building it into how engineering and customer support work together.

You will use AI in everything you do: • Research and specifications.

Run down tractor and mower deck geometry, hitch and PTO standards, fastener and material specs, regulatory questions, and supplier capabilities.

• Customer case triage.

Turn messy support notes, photos, and partial measurements into a clear problem statement, a set of candidate solutions, and the specific questions support still needs to ask.

• Patterns in support data.

Mine ticket and call history to surface recurring fitment problems that justify a released production part instead of another one off — and to quantify the case for it.

• Documentation and knowledge.

Draft install instructions, FAQ entries, supplier RFQs and inspection criteria, and ECO write ups; keep the support team’s knowledge base and fitment rules organized and searchable for people who are not engineers.

• Engineering checks and workflow.

Sanity check hand calculations, load cases, tolerance stacks, and unit conversions.

Build and share prompts, templates, and small automations that make engineering and support faster.

The engineer owns the answer, not the tool.

Anything that reaches a customer, a supplier, or a released drawing gets verified against real measurements, published standards, and physical parts.

Responsibilities — Supplier and Production Support • Work with our procurement team on quoting, first article review, and resolution of manufacturing issues with domestic and overseas suppliers.

• Evaluate manufacturability and cost early; choose processes and tolerances that suppliers can actually hold at our volumes.

• Support supplier communication on drawing questions, deviations, tooling changes, and quality issues.

How This Role Grows Two ways, and we’ll follow the one you’re good at.

• Technical depth.

Design Engineer Senior / Lead Design Engineer.

Own a full platform program end to end, lead a redesign, mentor the next engineer we hire.

• Sourcing and supplier development.

This role already works with purchasing on quotes, first articles, tooling, and cost.

For the right person that grows into owning supplier relationships and cost decisions, with company support for training such as APICS / ASCM coursework.

Either way the scope grows.

The person who held this job before you left because he had done everything in it.

We are building the job so that doesn’t happen again.

Required Qualifications • Education and experience.

A bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or a closely related field, or an associate’s degree with demonstrated design and shop work that makes up the difference.

At least one to three years of product design in a manufacturing environment; more is welcome and will be reflected in title and pay.

• Demonstrated, current use of AI tools.

In technical or professional work, with specific examples in your application.

“Willing to learn” does not meet this requirement.

• Proficiency in a parametric 3D CAD system (Onshape, SolidWorks, Fusion, Inventor, Creo, or CATIA). We use Onshape; candidates from other platforms will be trained.

• Working knowledge of GD&T per ASME Y14.5 and the ability to produce a complete, unambiguous manufacturing drawing.

• Understanding of sheet metal forming, laser cutting, welding, machining, and plastic molding — including how to design parts that can actually be produced by them.

• Mechanical aptitude and genuine comfort in the shop: hands on assembly, prototype work, testing, and measurement, plus regular coordination with the fabrication team.

• Ability to shift between long range project work and same day customer driven problems without losing track of either.

• Clear written and verbal communication, including explaining a technical solution in plain language to non engineers and directly to customers.

• Interest in growing beyond a pure design role over time.

• Physical requirements: ability to reach, grasp, and manipulate tools and components; ability to climb on and off and physically drive a riding tractor or mower.

Preferred Qualifications • Prior customer facing or applications engineering experience.

• Familiarity with lawn tractors, zero turn mowers, ATVs, UTVs, or towed equipment, including hitch and PTO interfaces.

• Design experience with rotational, blow, or injection molding; 3D printing for rapid prototyping; or FEA for structural and fatigue evaluation.

• Experience releasing parts to overseas suppliers, including first article and quality follow up.

• Familiarity with a PLM system or a structured ECO process.

• Exposure to purchasing, sourcing, cost analysis, or supplier quality work in any capacity.

• Has built something with AI that other people use.

What Success Looks Like First 90 days: Fluent in Onshape and our drawing and part numbering standards, with first parts released.

Handling routine technical support escalations independently.

Comfortably ordering laser cut parts and coordinating forming, welding, and finishing with the shop.

AI is in every part of your daily work, and you can explain to the rest of us how the tools you use work and where they fail.

First year: Owning at least one production release program end to end.

Recognized by the technical support team as their engineering partner — responsive, clear, and reliable.

Fewer support cases need an engineer at all.

At least one recurring one off converted into a released production part or kit.

You have changed how the team works with AI: at least one workflow, tool, or automation that other people on the engineering and support teams now use, and you have used it to find something we did not know — a pattern in support data, a cost driver, a fitment gap.

Actively participating in supplier conversations and starting to influence sourcing and cost decisions.

How We Work • On site in West Haven.

Remote is the exception, and not in the fall.

• Everything committed has a date in Wrike, and the status is true.

• Problems get written down and root-caused, not patched and forgotten.

Decisions get written down with their consequences.

• A short written update every Friday: what shipped, what’s stuck, what’s next.

• AI tools are standard equipment from day one, and you’re expected to help the people around you use them.

• You’ll be measured against the 90-day and first-year marks above, and we’ll tell you how it’s going.

Work Environment Split between an engineering office and our in-house shop and test areas.

Occasional outdoor field testing in varied weather, occasional lifting of components up to 50 pounds, and limited travel to suppliers or test sites.

Full-time