Associate Manager – Design Engineering

Toppan Thermoforming is seeking a Product Design Associate Manager to both lead and actively contribute to the design and development of thermoformed products used in the medical industry for the TEQ business unit. This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for not only managing and mentoring a team of product designers but also personally performing design and development tasks. The successful candidate will lead projects from concept through commercialization, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams, including engineering, operations, and sales, to deliver innovative, cost-effective, and manufacturable solutions that meet or exceed customer requirements.

What you’ll be doing:

• Lead and mentor a team of product designers, providing guidance, training, and support to ensure timely and efficient project execution.
• Oversee product design processes, ensuring alignment with customer requirements, manufacturability, and cost targets.
• Manage the end-to-end design lifecycle, including initial concept, CAD modeling, prototyping, testing, and production readiness.
• Maintain and refine design standards, best practices, and documentation for consistent product development.
• Conduct design reviews, risk assessments, and continuous improvement initiatives to drive innovation and improve product performance.
• Develop and track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to design efficiency, product quality, and cost.
• Monitors and plans incoming projects based on the team’s utilization and workload.
• Execute cross-training for designers and engineers to enhance team capacity and capability.

This position is located at our Huntley, IL Facility

We’d love to hear from you if:

• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with various concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
• Excellent communication, problem-solving, and project management skills.
• Able to grow and support employees with cross-training opportunities.
• Ability to drive meaningful department metrics.
• Ability to coach continuous improvement programs.
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams to drive continuous improvement.
• Capacity for leading change, dealing with ambiguity, and providing creative solutions.
• Strong knowledge of manufacturing and fabrication processes.
• Strong knowledge of product and tool development.
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment and prioritize and manage multiple projects with minimal direction. 
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, Solid Works, and Visio.
• 4 Year college degree and/or 5 + years relevant and or related work experience
• Experience in the medical device, consumer goods, or industrial packaging sectors is a plus.
• Familiarity with regulatory standards such as FDA or ISO for medical or food-grade packaging is a plus.
• Knowledge of Design for Assembly (DFA) and Design for Cost (DFC) principles.
• Familiarity with project management tools (e.g., MS Project, Asana, Jira).
• Travel up to 10%