Koch Industries

Senior Industrial Product Design Engineer - Optical Solutions

Koch Industries$170K — $225K *
Manufacturing & Automotive
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Industrial Design, Mechanical or related technical engineering field
  • At least 5 years of Industrial Design experience
  • Experience designing mechanical interfaces with strong attention to aesthetics and tactile quality
  • Expert in SolidWorks for 3D modeling, assemblies, and detailed drawings
  • Knowledge of materials, surface finishes, textures, and color application effects on quality and durability
  • Familiarity with manufacturing processes (sheet metal, die casting, machining, injection molding)
  • Experience with defining and measuring tactile metrics, and DFM/DFA

Responsibilities

  • Design and standardize user interface elements such as handles and latches
  • Specify product interface details and define interaction feedback
  • Translate design concepts into manufacturable mechanical solutions
  • Produce rapid prototypes to validate ergonomic performance
  • Plan and conduct usability and sensory evaluations
  • Generate mechanical and cosmetic specifications including materials and finishes
  • Collaborate cross-functionally to align usability with visual and tactile intent
  • Support reliability testing and address customer technical issues

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Flexible spending and health savings accounts
  • Life insurance and disability coverage
  • Retirement planning assistance
  • Paid vacation and time off
  • Educational assistance
  • Parental leave and adoption assistance
Full Job Description
As a Senior Industrial Design Engineer, you will design, define and deliver product layout, appearance, color, tactile experience, and ease of use for Molex OSBU's optical networking hardware-line cards, optical modules, chassis systems, and other high-performance platforms. You will blend industrial design expertise, human-centered design, and functional systems thinking to deliver intuitive, visually coherent, ergonomic, mechanically reliable, and premium-feeling interfaces for dense, thermally constrained environments.

You will define the visual language of product elements (surface finishes, color cues, iconography, fonts, weights), the tactile behavior (force profiles, detents, feedback), and the overall sensory impression. This person will work very closely with mechanical, hardware and other cross functional teams.

What You Will Do
  • Design and standardize user interface elements such as handles, levers, latches, insertion/extraction mechanisms, service and bezel features with explicit appearance and quality standards goals such as consistent surface texture, visual alignment, and perceptible quality
  • Specify product interface and mechanism details and define force curves, detents, travel, and feedback so interactions feel intentional, repeatable, and premium
  • Translate industrial design concepts into manufacturable mechanical solutions while preserving visual cues (color accents, matte/gloss contrasts, safety markings) that guide user actions
  • Produce rapid prototypes (3D print, quick-turn machined and sheet metal parts, prototype tooling) to validate ergonomic performance, functionality and visual/tactile fidelity
  • Plan and run usability and sensory evaluations to measure perceived quality, ease of use, and visual clarity of interaction points
  • Generate mechanical and cosmetic specifications including materials, finishes, textures, tolerances, and color/marking standards tied to acceptance criteria
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Optical, Electrical, Thermal, Firmware, and Product Management to align system performance with usability, visual and tactile intent.
  • Work with manufacturing and suppliers to ensure tooling, surface treatments, and assembly processes preserve look-and-feel at scale
  • Support reliability and environmental testing with acceptance criteria that include appearance retention, tactile consistency after lifecycle testing, and resistance to wear
  • Drive continuous improvement by analyzing field feedback on perceived quality, serviceability, and visual/tactile failure modes and implementing corrective design changes
  • Document design rationale and visual branding to guide future product families
  • Address customer technical issues in collaboration with application engineers, Quality, and technical support teams.

Who You Are (Basic Qualifications)
  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Industrial Design, Mechanical or related technical engineering field
  • At least 5 years of Industrial Design experience
  • Experience designing mechanical interfaces with demonstrable attention to look, feel, and tactile quality
  • Expert proficiency in SolidWorks for 3D modeling, assemblies, and detailed drawings.
  • Experience of materials, surface finishes, textures, and color application as they affect quality and durability.
  • Experience with manufacturing processes (sheet metal, die casting, machining, injection molding) and how they influence final appearance and feel.
  • Experience defining and measuring tactile metrics (force, travel, detent) and translate them into CAD features, fixture requirements, and visual outcome.
  • Experience in DFM/DFA
  • Experience with tolerance stack ups, Finite element analysis FEA), and thermal management.


What Will Put You Ahead
  • Background in industrial design collaboration, human factors engineering, or ergonomics with a portfolio of high-quality user interface designs.
  • Experience with designing data center equipment
  • Knowledge of DFM/DFA and supplier management to preserve visual and tactile intent.
  • Experience with tolerance stack - ups, FEA, and thermal management.


For this role, we anticipate paying $170,000- $225,000 per year. This role is eligible for variable pay, issued as a monetary bonus or in another form.

At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Hiring Philosophy

All Koch companies value diversity of thought, perspectives, aptitudes, experiences, and backgrounds. We are Military Ready and Second Chance employers. Learn more about our hiring philosophy here .

Our Benefits

Our goal is for each employee, and their families, to live fulfilling and healthy lives. We provide essential resources and support to build and maintain physical, financial, and emotional strength - focusing on overall wellbeing so you can focus on what matters most. Our benefits plan includes - medical, dental, vision, flexible spending and health savings accounts, life insurance, ADD, disability, retirement, paid vacation/time off, educational assistance, and may also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave and adoption assistance. Specific eligibility criteria is set by the applicable Summary Plan Description, policy or guideline and benefits may vary by geographic region. If you have questions on what benefits apply to you, please speak to your recruiter.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.

About Koch Industries

Koch Industries, Inc. is an American privately-held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas. Its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, ranching, finance, commodities trading, and investing. Koch owns Infor, Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Molex, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Pipeline, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Minerals, Matador Cattle Company, i360, and Guardian Industries. The firm employs 120,000 people in 60 countries, with about half of its business in the United States. The company is the largest non-Canadian landowner in the Athabasca oil sands. With annual revenues of $110 billion by 2014, the company is the largest privately held company in the United States. In 2007, it was ranked as the largest privately held company. If Koch Industries had been a public company in 2013, it would have ranked 17th in the Fortune 500. The company was founded by its namesake, Fred C. Koch, in 1940 after he developed an innovative crude oil refining process. Fred C. Koch died in 1967 and his majority interest in the company was split amongst his four sons. In June 1983, after a bitter legal and boardroom battle, the stakes of Frederick R. Koch and William "Bill" Koch were bought out for $1.1 billion and Charles Koch and David Koch became majority owners in the company. Charles owns 42% of the company; trusts for the benefit of Elaine Tettemer Marshall and Elaine's children, Preston Marshall and E. Pierce Marshall Jr., own 16% of the company. The heirs of David Koch, who died on August 23, 2019, own the balance, 42%, of the corporation.
Learn more about Koch Industries
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Founded
1940

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