PVT Engineer

Optimal Inc.

$80K — $95K *
Manufacturing & Automotive
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree required
  • 3+ years of experience in automotive manufacturing, plant quality, or warranty analysis roles
  • Hands-on experience in OEM assembly plant environment
  • Strong experience with warranty data analysis and tools like Excel
  • Demonstrated experience using structured problem-solving methodologies like 8D and 5 Why analysis

Responsibilities

  • Analyze warranty claims and customer feedback to identify trends and quality issues
  • Perform daily categorization of warranty claims to prioritize issues
  • Conduct root cause investigations through hands-on plant inspections and part analysis
  • Lead development and implementation of Interim Containment Actions and Permanent Corrective Actions
  • Support various assembly plant activities including quality campaigns and audits
  • Collaborate with suppliers and engineering teams to resolve quality issues
  • Report on Vehicle Functional Group quality metrics and communicate findings to teams

Benefits

  • Fully onsite position for hands-on experience
  • Opportunities for cross-functional collaboration
  • Engagement in high-visibility quality initiatives
  • Direct involvement in problem-solving on the plant floor
  • Potential for impactful contributions to vehicle quality improvements
Full Job Description
Job Title:
Plant Vehicle Team Engineer - Body / Vehicle Quality Engineering

Position Overview:
We are seeking a Plant Vehicle Team Engineer (PVTE) to support vehicle quality initiatives within an automotive assembly plant environment.
This role is responsible for identifying, analyzing, and resolving vehicle quality issues using warranty data, plant investigations, and structured problem-solving methodologies.
This is a hands-on, plant-floor-focused role requiring close collaboration with manufacturing, supplier quality, and engineering teams to drive root cause analysis and corrective actions.

Key Responsibilities:
Analyze warranty claim data and customer feedback to identify failure trends, emerging issues, and high-impact quality concerns
Perform daily triage and binning of warranty claims into appropriate categories to support prioritization Conduct root cause investigations using plant-floor inspections, returned parts analysis, and cross-functional collaboration
Lead development and execution of: Interim Containment Actions (ICA) Permanent Corrective Actions (PCA)
Support assembly plant activities including: Stop Ships / Stop Builds Quality Campaigns and Audits Engineering Trials and Running Changes
Work directly on the plant floor to investigate build issues and validate corrective actions
Collaborate with suppliers and internal engineering teams to resolve component and subsystem quality issues
Maintain and report on Vehicle Functional Group (VFG) quality metrics (Top 20 issues) Issue engineering alerts and documentation to support product changes and quality improvements
Present findings, status updates, and recommendations to cross-functional teams and leadership

Skills Required:
Technical Skills Strong experience with warranty data analysis: Excel (pivot tables, lookups, trend analysis, large dataset handling)
Ability to navigate CAD models (NX, CATIA, or similar) for: Part-to-part interface analysis
Root cause investigation (Note: Design ownership is not required, but functional CAD usage is essential)
Problem-Solving & Quality Tools Demonstrated experience using structured methodologies: 8D Problem Solving 5 Why Analysis Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagrams
Experience implementing: Interim Containment Actions (ICA) Permanent Corrective Actions (PCA)
Core Competencies Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills in a manufacturing environment
Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-visibility plant setting
Effective cross-functional communication with engineering, production, and suppliers Ability to own issues end-to-end and drive them to closure

Experience Required:
3+ years of experience in: Automotive manufacturing, OR Plant quality, product engineering, or warranty analysis roles
Hands-on experience in an OEM assembly plant environment is required Proven experience performing root cause analysis and driving issues to resolution in a production environment

Experience Preferred:
Automotive OEM or Tier 1 supplier experience in: Body systems, closures, or vehicle structures
Experience with: PLM tools (e.g., Teamcenter)
Warranty or quality tracking systems Prior involvement in launch support or running product changes

Education Required:
Bachelor's Degree

Additional Information:
Position is fully onsite.
Other applicable experience could be considered 100% onsite role within an automotive assembly plant
Requires regular time on the plant floor investigating active production issues

Hiring Manager is looking for strong candidates that have the following type of experience:
Seasoned Plant Quality Engineers.
Supplier Quality Engineers with assembly support
Resident Engineering experience
Manufacturing Quality Leads
Warranty Engineers
Launch Quality Engineers who have worked in a plant multiple years

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