Lead Project Engineer - Micro Hydraulic

This is the career you’ve been waiting for your whole life. Joining the Stanley Black & Decker team means working in an innovative, tech-driven and highly collaborative team environment supported by over 58,000 professionals in 60 countries across the globe. Here, you’ll get the unique chance to impact some of the world’s most iconic brands including STANLEY TOOLS, DEWALT, CRAFTSMAN, MAC TOOLS and Black & Decker. Your ideas and solutions have the potential to reach millions of customers as we work together to write the next chapter in our history. Come build with us and take your career to new heights.    
 
Who You Are 
You’re a strong problem solver who loves digging into the details to fully understand what is going on.  You have fixed a lot of problems, so you know how to sort out what is meaningful and what is not to be as efficient as possible. You have run DOE’s and done the statistics to make well informed decisions.  You like getting your hands dirty and want to be the one disassembling a problem to find out what is broken and how to fix it. You are comfortable taking the lead, and enjoy coaching, teaching, and developing talent.  You are looking for a high-visibility role where you can make an immediate and lasting impact.  You can lead the complete design of a complex electro-mechanical product.  You’re agile and adaptable but work with precision to ensure we deliver top-notch customer experiences, always.  You want to work on a project where you can see the fruits of your labor come to life and enjoy seeing the finished product on the shelves of major retailers around the globe. You also have:  

Job Summary

The Micro-Hydraulic Lead Engineer is responsible for leading the design, development, integration, and validation of Micro-Hydraulic systems, subsystems, and components for product platforms and customer applications. This role provides technical leadership for handheld and stationary micro-hydraulic system design activities, including architecture definition, component selection, system analysis, prototype development, testing, and production launch support. The position requires strong cross-functional collaboration with electrical, software, motor controls, suppliers, and manufacturing teams to deliver high-quality hydraulic solutions that meet performance, cost, schedule, and reliability objectives.   Experience contributing to intellectual property development, invention disclosures, and patent-support activities is highly valued.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent is required
• 7 to 10 years of mechanical design experience in micro-hydraulic system design and development.
• Demonstrated experience leading engineering projects or technical workstreams.
• Strong knowledge of hydraulic system principles, fluid power components, and system integration with background in high pressure micro-hydraulics.
• Experience creating and interpreting hydraulic schematics and engineering documentation.
• Experience creating and interpreting engineering drawings.
• Proficiency in hydraulic calculations, component sizing, and system troubleshooting.
• Experience with product development processes from concept through production launch.
• Knowledge of GD&T, DFM/DFA, DFMEA, and root cause analysis methodologies.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work effectively with a global team, including suppliers and manufacturing operations.
• Ability to provide direction and mentorship to engineers and designers and lead project teams independently.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with micro-hydraulic, high pressure compact hydraulic, or electro-hydraulic system applications.
• Familiarity with regulated, safety-critical, or high-reliability product environments.
• Experience supporting supplier qualification and component validation activities.
• Advanced analytical capability in system performance optimization and failure investigation.

Leadership and Behavioral Expectations

• Self-motivated, creative, goal-oriented, and a strong team player.
• Holds self-accountable for results and behaviors, overcomes obstacles, and partners with others to deliver on commitments.
• Demonstrate understanding of quality, performance, schedule, and cost objectives in a cross-functional and/or technical environment.
• Provides strong technical leadership and sound engineering judgment in a collaborative environment.

Key Skills and Competencies

• Hydraulic system design and integration; specifically high pressure.
• Fluid power engineering
• Technical leadership
• System analysis and troubleshooting
• Product development and validation
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Risk assessment and DFMEA

What You’ll Do 
As a Lead Project Engineer, you’ll be part of our Global Tools & Storage team located in Towson, MD. Specifically, you’ll:

• Lead the design and development of micro-hydraulic systems, subsystems, and components for product platforms and customer applications.
• Translate product requirements into micro-hydraulic architecture, subsystems, documentation, schematics, component specifications, and system performance criteria.
• Perform micro-hydraulic system sizing, pressure and flow calculations, load analysis, thermal analysis, and performance optimization.
• Lead technical decision-making for hydraulic system design activities across assigned engineering projects and technical workstreams.
• Develop and execute plans for project sample builds, prototype development, and engineering validation activities.
• Define validation plans and support testing activities to verify hydraulic system functionality, durability, efficiency, and safety.
• Troubleshoot hydraulic performance issues during prototype, testing, pilot, and production phases.
• Lead technical feasibility studies, design reviews, risk assessments, and DFMEA activities.
• Participate in hands-on concept development, prototyping, product testing, and data collection, while providing technical feedback and recommendations.
• Collaborate with motor controls, electrical, and software teams to integrate electro-hydraulic systems and ensure proper system behavior.
• Drive design standardization, modularity, and reuse of proven hydraulic solutions across programs.
• Support supplier selection, technical reviews, and component qualification activities.
• Ensure designs comply with applicable industry standards, regulatory requirements, and internal engineering processes.
• Manage engineering deliverables, schedules, and technical execution for assigned projects.
• Successfully deliver projects that achieve quality, performance, schedule, and cost objectives in a cross-functional environment.
• Participate in cross-functional meetings to communicate technical status, risks, issues, and recommended solutions.
• Support cost reduction, quality improvement, and continuous improvement initiatives related to hydraulic systems.
• Provide direction, mentorship, and technical guidance to project engineers, engineers, and designers, and lead project teams independently.

Benefits & Perks 
You’ll get a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits plan that includes medical, dental, life, vision, wellness program, disability, 401k, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, Paid Time Off, including paid vacation, holidays & personal days, and tuition reimbursement. And, of course, discounts on Stanley Black & Decker tools and products and well as discount programs for many other vendors and partners.  
 
What You’ll Also Get

• Career Opportunity: Career paths aren’t linear here.  Being part of our global company with 60+ brands gives you the chance to grow and develop your skills along multiple career paths.  We need all kinds of people, so whether you want to become a technical expert, or grow your skills in multiple disciplines, you have come to the right spot.
• Learning & Development: Our lifelong learning philosophy means you’ll have access to a wealth of state-of-the-art learning resources, including our Lean Academy and online university (where you can get certificates and specializations from renowned colleges and universities).  We also focus on having technical experts in each area that are there to guide you along the way, so you are never alone.
• Diverse & Inclusive Culture: We pride ourselves on being an awesome place to work. We respect and embrace differences because that’s how the best work gets done. You’ll find we like to have fun here, too. 
• Purpose-Driven Company: You’ll help us continue to make positive changes in the local communities where we work and live as well as in the broader world through volunteerism, giving back and sustainable business practices.
• Hands on environment:  We love tools and using them!  We have prototyping, use & handling, testing, inspection and metallurgy labs all right here in Towson.
• A company with History.  We have been designing tools for long time which means we have a lot of expertise here, but that doesn’t mean we are afraid to try new things.  We have a long list of World’s firsts to our credit and we need you to keep that going! 

 
The Salary range for this position is $110,600.00 - $178,000.00

• This is the lowest to highest annual full-time salary range we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. The salary offered within the range may vary depending on multiple factors including job level, geographic location, job-related knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience and in compliance with local wage requirements. Please note that salary is only one component of total rewards at Stanley Black & Decker. ​

• The salary range listed in this job posting reflects the range for the primary location specified. The salary range may vary for other locations.​

• The successful candidate may be eligible for annual merit increases. ​

• Medical, dental, life, vision, disability,401(k), Employee Stock Purchase Plan, paid time off, and tuition reimbursement in addition to programs & benefits in support of your well-being. ​

• Discounts on Stanley Black & Decker tool sand other partner programs.