Furniture Design Engineer / Graduate Design Engineer

The role in brief
We are looking for a highly motivated Design Engineer to work closely with our Design Director. You will be instrumental in evolving the design of our ‘Chool Kit’ product and managing relationships with suppliers and manufacturers throughout the UK and Europe. Salary is negotiable and dependent on experience.

Project – Chool Kit
In the first half of 2014 we are putting 6 different versions of Chool to market. Each one of the different versions is powered by a kit of parts that we have cunningly named – Chool Kit! At the heart of the Kit is a mechanism that we call Jack! Now this is where you come in! These bits of tech are key to making any Chool work, we have evolved the design over the past few years and we are now funded and ready to take the product to market. So with your help we need to refine Jack and Chool Kit’s design to be super efficient for high volume production.

The Role
We are looking for a highly motivated Design Engineer to work closely with our Design Director. You will be instrumental in evolving the design of our ‘Chool Kit’ product and managing relationships with suppliers and manufacturers throughout the UK and Europe. The focus of this project is to create pre production prototypes, and to push a profitable product to market quickly.

You’ll require a good knowledge of volume production design for aluminium sheet metal extrusion, metal spinning and casting. You will be working directly with the Design Director and our manufacturers, revising the design of the product to increase the production efficiency. We need someone that has experience sourcing and managing relationships with suppliers and manufacturers, so good interpersonal, communication and organisational skills are essential.

You will be working with Autodesk Inventor and Vault 2014 and expected to be able to operate the software swiftly at a professional level.

Experience with mechanical sliding systems, gas shock and dampers will be highly valuable. A good understanding of product and furniture design is a distinct advantage.

This is an exciting opportunity for a Design Engineer who is interested in being involved in commercialising a highly innovative, disruptive product concept.

Key skills and thorough understanding of:
Software – Autodesk Inventor 2013/2014
Engineering mechanical design evolution
Evolving component design to improve efficiency of production
Preparing engineering drawings
Sheet metal fabrication
Aluminium extrusion profile design
Aluminium casting component design
Value engineering
Component limits, fits & finishes
Create and amend own drawings on 2D /3D
Design for manufacture

Skills – highly beneficial
Software – Autodesk Vault 2014
Mechanical systems
Autodesk Showcase
Autodesk 3D Studio Max
Guide wheels and rails
Gas shocks and dampers
Product design
Furniture design
Simultaneous or concurrent engineering experience
Flexible, organised, structured and disciplined with good team skills

Responsibilities
Design adjustments to increase production efficiency
Sourcing and liaising with manufacturers and suppliers
Creating and managing production drawings
Managing design data
Managing project deadlines
Creation of pre production prototypes
Helping improve and shape the studios design process

Suitability
As a Design Engineer it is vital that you have a good understanding of materials and engineering, but also how products are made and the manufacturing process.

The ideal candidate is someone that loves problem solving and has a passion for design and making something from nothing. You need to be a self-starter as this position offers both variety and autonomy – never monotony. No one-day is ever the same.
As getting a product to market is not easy we are looking for someone who is a creative problem solver, persistent and determined.

If you are entrepreneurial and hungry to play a part in game changing the furniture market, then we would love to talk to you.