Product Life Cycle Solutions Engineer

 Position Summary 

The Product Life Cycle Solutions Engineer manages the technical assessment and engineering continuity of legacy, obsolete, and No Longer Available (NLA) service parts across major HVAC product lines. This role serves as the premier technical authority responsible for ensuring the continued support of installed equipment well beyond its original production life often spanning 20 to 30+ years. The engineer collaborates closely with Product Management, Strategic Sourcing, Quality, and Manufacturing to evaluate technical risks, define service strategies, and implement creative engineering substitutions that eliminate backorders and prevent customer downtime. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Lifecycle & Obsolescence Management: Own the technical assessment of legacy and NLA service parts. Evaluate lifecycle statuses (active, depleting, obsolete, superseded) and execute technical end-of-life or service continuation strategies based on demand, feasibility, and cost constraints. 

• Engineering Solutions & Reverse Engineering: Develop and validate service-only engineering solutions, including form-fit-function validation of alternate parts, component modifications, and reverse-engineered replacements for unsupported designs. Define service equivalents and complex supersession logic. 

• Supplier & Sourcing Collaboration: Partner closely with Strategic Sourcing to identify, evaluate, and qualify alternate suppliers. Resolve supplier discontinuations, tooling losses, and capacity constraints by providing engineering input on vendor feasibility and low-volume manufacturing capabilities. 

• Service Parts Enablement & Data Integrity: Create, validate, and maintain Service Bills of Materials (BOMs), retrofit kits, and parts catalog structures. Ensure flawless alignment of technical data across enterprise ERP (SAP), PLM (Windchill), and aftermarket service platforms. 

• Operational Excellence & Rapid Recovery: Drive recovery solutions for difficult-to-source legacy parts utilizing low-volume manufacturing methods (CNC, sheet metal, castings) to resolve complex disruptions and minimize backorders in high-ambiguity scenarios. 

• Customer & Stakeholder Interface: Act as the technical escalation point for complex field issues. Maintain frequent contact with key customers and field teams with a high degree of tact, preparing diagnostic and engineering reports for the senior leadership team to address design or system-related problems. 

Work Schedule 

• Shift: First Shift 

• Hours: Monday through Friday  

• Location: 100% On-site (Syracuse, NY) 

Minimum Requirements 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or  engineering discipline. 

• Minimum of 7 years of prior relevant experience in HVAC systems, service parts, aftermarket engineering, or product lifecycle management; OR an Advanced Engineering Degree with a minimum of 5 years of experience. 

• 3+ years hands-on proficiency working with complex product structures, BOM hierarchies, and enterprise ERP/PLM software environments (e.g., SAP, Windchill). 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Strong grasp of alternate component sourcing, supplier transition pathways, and service-specific validation setups (such as deviations or PPAP-lite approvals). 

• Prior experience operating successfully within low-demand, high-complexity manufacturing or engineering environments. 

• Demonstrated background balancing speed, technical rigor, and risk management when making product decisions under low-data or high-ambiguity scenarios. 

• Substantial knowledge of large-scale industrial organizational structures, cross-functional program execution, and field diagnostic communications.