Product Engineer

AFL manufactures industry-leading fiber optic cable, connectivity and accessories and provides engineering and installation services for some of the largest telecom customers in the world. Our company was founded in 1984 with a single fiber optic cable and today, we manufacture thousands of products, generate an excess of $4B in revenue, and employ approximately 12,000 associates worldwide. At AFL, we recognize that our employees are our greatest asset. We hire and train each individual, investing in them to ensure success in their careers. With a commitment to professional development and growth, let us connect you to your next career opportunity.

What We Offer:

• Flexible time off policy
• Hybrid work schedule
• 401K Company match (up to 4% - dollar for dollar)
• Professional development, training, and tuition reimbursement programs
• Excellent medical, dental, vision, and life insurance policy options
• Opportunities for career advancement with an industry leading company!

Summary

The Product Engineer is part of a high-performing team that designs and develops energy accessories and advanced manufacturing technologies. This engineer is responsible for accessory design control and system integration, maintaining engineering administrative processes, ensuring products meet customer requirements, and aligning product data with current manufacturing capabilities. Key responsibilities include: integration of design controls and data analysis using SQL, Python, and reporting tools to ensure configuration data accuracy, automation of repetitive engineering processes and optimization of systems to ensure efficiency, analysis of product, quality, and manufacturing data to produce clear recommendations for changes, product specification management, engineering oversight of systems and processes to ensure timely item builds, drawing revisions, and customer responses, and timely execution of engineering changes. The role is critical to maintaining customers’ expectations and putting the customer first. The role requires someone who is flexible, able to work with numerous departments, is detail oriented, and driven to mistake free work. The position is within the Product Engineering department and reports to the Product Engineering Manager.

Responsibilities

• Design and set up new item configurations in current engineering systems, and develop tools and automation (e.g., rules-based configurators, Excel or Python calculators, SQL scripts, AI-assisted tools) that make setup faster and more accurate.
• Manage generation and storage of product data across internal systems and analyze data integrity to ensure agreement across all sources.
• Analyze item, bill of material, and manufacturing data from Oracle/ERP and engineering systems, and build dashboards and reports (e.g., Power BI) that guide configuration, standardization, and cost decisions.
• Develop and maintain product drawings, specifications, and data sheets, and translate customer drawings and specifications to AFL products and processes.
• Interpret technical industry standards, regulatory compliance documentation, and Customer Drawings/Specifications and apply to AFL products, data management, and processes.
• Automate manual data processes, optimize user queries, and facilitate data research and understanding while partnering with analysts and business specialists
• Support new item sourcing requests and evaluate how material and test specification changes affect bills of material.
• Address internal and external nonconformance of parts and materials, using basic statistical methods (Pareto, trend analysis, capability studies, DOE) to find root causes and support corrective action.
• Partner with Applications, Manufacturing, Process, and Development Engineering to streamline item development and setup.
• Serve as a subject matter expert (SME) on assigned energy accessory product types (Substation, Transmission, Distribution, Fiber Optic Hardware, Motion Control) and represent AFL at related standards and specifications meetings.
• Support execution of engineering changes.
• Other assignments as identified.
• Must successfully complete pre-employment assessments, background & reference checks.
• Adhere to and promote the environmental, health, and safety policies of AFL.

Personal Qualities

• Self-starter with integrity and confidence who delivers results with limited supervision, even in challenging environments.
• Team player and effective written and verbal communicator with strong interpersonal and influencing skills, comfortable in a cross-functional, multicultural environment.
• Organized, detail-oriented professional who manages time well and focuses on accuracy and repeatability.
• Analytical, curious problem solver who uses data to improve systems and supports engineering decisions and readily learns new software tools.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a related technical discipline; candidates without a degree will be considered with 10+ years in an engineering-defined role.
• Supplemental education in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or work equivalent preferred.
• 3+ years of work experience (co-op experience considered), including 2+ years in a technical industry, ideally utility or telecom; product development and maintenance experience is preferred.
• Experience with MS Word, PowerPoint, and Access, plus advanced Excel (pivot tables, lookups, Power Query); Oracle or other ERP system knowledge is preferred.
• 1+ years’ experience with SQL, Python (e.g., pandas) data management/development and Power BI or similar tools for querying, automating, and reporting on data preferred
• Demonstrated ability to analyze engineering, test, or manufacturing data and translate results into clear recommendations.
• Familiarity with basic statistics (SPC, capability studies, DOE) and data science concepts such as regression or forecasting is a plus.

Working Conditions

• Normal office environment with a hybrid work schedule.