Manufacturing Engineer CAD & DFM

Who We Are

Northern Manufacturing is a 160-person custom metal fabricator in Oak Harbor, Ohio, specializing in stainless steel and complex fabricated products. Since 1951, we've built custom equipment, tanks, weldments, machined assemblies, and complex fabrications for customers who need solutions that can't simply be bought off the shelf.

Our 160,000-square-foot facility includes flat and tube fiber laser cutting, press brake forming, manual and robotic welding, machining, finishing, and assembly. We are ISO 9001:2015 certified and maintain qualified welding procedures with an on-staff Certified Welding Inspector (CWI).

Every job is different. If you want to design the same bracket 400 times, this probably isn't the job for you. If you like opening a print package for something you've never seen before and figuring out how we're going to build it, you'll fit right in.

The Role

This is a manufacturing-focused engineering role—not a conventional product design position. Our customers' engineers typically design the equipment; your job is to help determine how Northern can manufacture it accurately, efficiently, and profitably.

You'll work between customer drawings, CAD models, and the shop floor—identifying manufacturability issues, developing practical solutions, and helping Production turn designs into finished products.

What You'll Do

• Review designs for manufacturability. Evaluate customer drawings and models against Northern's actual fabrication capabilities, including laser cutting, forming, welding, machining, and finishing. Identify potential tolerance, forming, fit-up, distortion, access, or fabrication issues before they reach production.
• Develop and modify CAD models and drawings. Use SolidWorks to work with sheet metal, weldments, assemblies, flat patterns, and production drawing packages.
• Recommend practical DFM solutions. Identify design features or requirements that create unnecessary manufacturing difficulty, cost, or risk and work with customers and internal teams to develop practical alternatives.
• Solve manufacturing problems. Support fixture and work-holding design, weld sequencing, routing and process development, first articles, and improvements to cycle time and repeatability.
• Work directly with the shop floor. Partner with welders, laser and press brake operators, machinists, Quality, and Production to troubleshoot issues and improve how work is manufactured.
• Support continuous improvement. Identify opportunities to improve processes, tooling, equipment utilization, and engineering workflows.
• Know when to escalate. Recognize requirements that need additional engineering, code, welding, or technical review and involve the appropriate customer, internal team, or outside resource.

What We're Looking For

The right person understands more than what works in CAD—you understand how metal behaves and what happens when a design reaches the shop floor. You know that a dimension that looks simple on a drawing can be difficult to hold after forming or welding, and you can recognize the difference between a straightforward fabrication requirement and one that deserves a closer look.

What Makes This Role Different

This isn't a desk-only engineering position. You'll regularly be on the production floor seeing how parts are actually cut, formed, welded, machined, and assembled—and working directly with the people building them.

For someone who enjoys solving new manufacturing problems rather than working on the same product repeatedly, there is a lot of variety here. The role also offers opportunities to grow into quoting support, capital equipment projects, process ownership, manufacturing automation, and engineering technology improvements.

Benefits

Northern Manufacturing offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• Medical, dental, vision, life, and short-term disability insurance effective on your first day of employment
• Paid Time Off (PTO) and paid holidays
• 401(k) with company match, available after 90 days of employment
• Annual profit-sharing contribution to your 401(k)

Relocation assistance may be considered based on experience and candidate fit.

Required

• Strong 3D CAD skills with the ability to develop and interpret parts, assemblies, and production drawings
• Strong blueprint reading skills and working knowledge of GD&T
• Practical understanding of metal fabrication processes, including laser cutting, forming, welding, and machining
• Ability to evaluate designs for manufacturability and identify potential production problems
• Strong problem-solving skills and willingness to work directly with employees on the shop floor
• Ability to clearly communicate technical issues and recommended solutions
• Ability to work on-site in Oak Harbor, Ohio

Preferred

• Advanced SolidWorks capability, particularly with sheet metal, weldments, flat patterns, and large assemblies
• Experience in a custom or high-mix/low-volume manufacturing environment
• Experience designing fixtures, tooling, or work-holding
• Experience with stainless steel fabrication and welded assemblies
• Experience with CAD automation, configurations, macros, APIs, or other engineering automation tools
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Technology, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field

A four-year engineering degree is not required if you have equivalent technical capability and experience. Candidates with strong backgrounds in machining, welding, fabrication, or manufacturing combined with demonstrated CAD/design experience are encouraged to apply.