Hydraulic Engineer

Provide technical expertise to product development teams in hydraulic engineering to assist in the design, analysis and test portions of a new or revised product. In this role, the hydraulic engineer will be a critical contributor to the team when the particular area of expertise is required. This role requires substantial expertise that is difficult to obtain and maintain and therefore should not be a subset of a test or design engineer’s job function. This position involves the design support of the total hydraulic system including selection of components, analysis support, preparing and analyzing costs, review of test plans and determining the causes of failures and appropriate solutions. These areas of expertise are applicable to all TORO business units.
DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Lead and coordinate the development of hydraulic systems, components and subsystems of all Commercial products. Works with the project teams to create designs that satisfy the product requirements as outlined in the product specification and resolves design problems. Assures opportunities for use of latest technologies, best practices, design standardization and platform design are incorporated into the process.
2. Perform engineering analysis and testing to evaluate the customer usage of the hydraulic portions of the proposed designs. The evaluation may take the form of mathematically simulating the design or detailed testing and analysis of test data to quantify the performance of the design.
3. Develop methods to use computational models and physical tests for use in the evaluation of proposed designs. Determine if commercially available software and test equipment is available for use in above evaluation work. Develop software and test equipment that is not available.
4. Work with product development team members to understand how customers use our products and develop criteria that will properly simulate customer usage. Develop methods (includes CLFA and FMEA) to ensure that the analysis and test evaluation techniques properly simulate and quantify the behavior and customer usage of the product. These methods will ensure that analytical methods properly correlate to physical testing and customer usage and that physical testing properly correlates to field and customer usage.
5. Use appropriate methods to evaluate the analysis and test results to obtain a better understanding of the design acceptability. Based upon the results, recommend changes that will improve the performance of the product.
6. Participate in project team meetings, design reviews, safety reviews, test plan preparation and review, etc. on an as needed basis. Report evaluation results and design change recommendations on a timely basis.
7. Keep abreast of new technological developments, components, concepts, materials, manufacturing processes or competitive environment in the hydraulic expertise. This is accomplished through literature review, technical conference & user group meetings, competitive product review and other methods.
8. Primary engineering contact for hydraulic suppliers. Works with NPD Sourcing to manage the available vendors. Develops specifications, working agreements and application approvals with appropriate vendors. Help assure that the vendors meet the requirements of the specifications. Approves all hydraulic component drawings and releases.
9. Work with product development team members to identify opportunities to apply the evaluation methods early in the development cycle and to quickly respond to design issues identified during the development cycle or to customer identified issues.
10. Provide Failure Analysis support to NPD and DCI teams to help resolve quality issues. Key activities include development of hydraulic failure mode templates to help identify major failure modes, and working with teams to identify, validate and implement corrective action on specific issues.
11. Add appropriate information to the Lessons Learned database consisting of best practices, design standards, risk avoidance and process improvements. This will require working closely with project design & test engineers to ensure that information is not duplicated in the database. In some cases, the hydraulics engineer will be the primary author of information added to the database; in other cases, the hydraulics engineer will supply information to the design or test engineer for addition to the database.
12. Travel to test sites, distributors, customers, vendors, manufacturing facilities, and others as required.

Headquartered in Bloomington, MN, The Toro Company is a leading global provider of outdoor landscaping products, services and integrated systems. With annual revenue exceeding $1.7 billion and over 5,500 employees in numerous U.S. and international facilities, Toro continues to build upon its 90 year legacy of innovation. We transform the way professionals and homeowners care for their outdoor landscapes. We believe market leadership and financial success best result from unleashing the potential of our employees. Our employees enhance their careers with cutting edge learning and development while enjoying a competitive salary and benefits package. Combining Toro’s innovation, international brand recognition and unique culture results in a work experience unsurpassed in the marketplace.
REQUIREMENTS
Bachelors, Masters or Ph.D. degree in Mechanical or Agricultural engineering required. Masters or Ph.D. preferred.

We will be considering candidates with a minimum of one year of relevant experience up to and including Senior Principal experienced engineers, preferably in the powered equipment industry.

You should possess the ability to work with others in teams to accomplish goals, including task and/or project leadership.