Use Your Technical Skill and Creativity to Come Up With New Ideas and See Them Come to Life

If you combine a technical degree with experience in multi-phase advanced development, you have a natural curiosity and hunger to learn, and you enjoy pairing creativity with an engineering mindset, this is an amazing opportunity to engage in blue sky ideation for a company with cutting-edge technology. You will:

• Make a huge impact by deeply learning our technology, digging into markets, and translating knowledge into ideas that will help us chart a course for product development.
• Join a strong team with a broad base of skill and knowledge, in an environment where you’ll do a great deal of thinking and reading. If you enjoy learning a lot of different things in a day, then this job is a great fit for you!
• Build your resume and accelerate your career potential by adding business strategy and analytics expertise to your technical mindset.
• Earn competitive compensation along with comprehensive benefits.

This position can be based in our Lisle, IL or Farmington Hills, MI, or Elkhart, IN offices, or you could work remote. If you are in one of the office locations, you will have more opportunities to complete hands-on engineering work. Quick question for you - click here

We touch millions of lives globally every day. CTS is a leading designer and manufacturer of sensors, actuators, and electronic components for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). We have over 20 locations in 12 countries and more than 3,500 employees. Our innovative sensing, connectivity, and motion solutions offer a diverse range of products across many industries. We are at the forefront of innovating life-changing technology, focusing on quality to keep people safe, healthy, and happy.

To meet the basic qualification for this role, you will have a bachelor's degree in Engineering (any sub-discipline), Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science or Math. To be a good fit for the Research Engineer opportunity, you will have:

• A technical-focused bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience Quick question for you - click here
• Experience in multi-phase advanced development pursuits, with the ability to operate within ambiguous scenarios and still make it to the end goal
• Demonstrated experience in self-oriented and self-driven learning (such as a PhD, MS thesis, or similar professional achievement)
• Familiarity with core technology fields sufficient to enable critical and comparative analysis: software, algorithms, statistics, E&M, mechanics, materials / analytic chemistry, digital control systems, analog devices
• The ability to communicate effectively

Preferred but not required:

• PhD in a technical field a plus
• Experience in Analytic Chemistry, Electric machines, or MEMS devices a plus Quick question for you - click here

You may be asked to travel 10-25%, such as to attend conferences, mostly within the U.S. but possibly international.

Reporting to the Director of the Innovation Center, you will be part of a collaborative team of four responsible for the 5-10 year product and technology strategy for our Sensors and Mechatronics group.

On a day-to-day basis, you’ll take the big ideas the team originates and spend much of your time on research, learning about a market sector or technology, networking with experts to get as much information as you can, and becoming a quasi-expert yourself.

You may also have the opportunity to work on special projects from time to time. For example, the RF Systems group (largely contained within the Innovation Center) has designed / is designing an RF Sensing system to enable better control of EATS (exhaust after-treatment systems). The technology entails an RF analog front end, antenna design, digital signal processing, full wave EM simulation, physical experimentation on bench flow systems in Elkhart, ML algorithms for feature selection and in-field forward propagation. This, and other exciting projects, are coming down the pipeline, and this team is in a good position to be a part of developing some of these projects.

Some of your specific tasks will be to:

• Manage investment phase Innovation projects through Concept Validation (internal or managed external).
• Ensure smooth project transitions to Adv R&D, Product Management or Commercial Engineering groups.
• Contribute to S&M BU’s open horizon Technology Vision and hold co-responsibility for strategic alignment to fixed horizon Product/Technology roadmap.

Note: this description is intended to give you a general overview of the position and is not an exhaustive listing of duties and responsibilities.

Wide-ranging Impact
This is an extremely important role as the organization is relying on this group to be successful in developing future product and development options to build out our pipeline. A team with the right mix of skill and creativity is well-positioned to help significantly shape the future of our company.

Professional Development
You'll come in with a good ability to think strategically and technically, but you’ll stretch your business thinking muscles in this role. The intersection of these skill sets will absolutely serve you well in your career, whether within CTS or elsewhere. Once you find success in this role you could move into business development, strategy, market development, engineering management, or more.

Great Environment
You will join a team that includes dedicated, smart, talented and mutually supportive professionals. We engage in collaborative work and we each have skillsets that allow us to take advantage of learning from the others. The team is fairly lean and the pace is fast, but we believe in strong communication and are all dedicated to meeting our goals and objectives.

Growth Oriented
Company-wide, there is a tremendous effort being spent to drive growth. That means adding key resources and providing room for strong performers to make a name for themselves. Growth = opportunity to take on even greater responsibilities and advance.

Excellent compensation
In addition to a competitive salary and bonus potential, we offer a slate of benefits including medical, dental, vision and other insurances; a 401(k) plan; flexible spending accounts; and more.

Our ideal candidate has the ability and willingness to self-orient, enjoys directing their own learning, and isn’t averse to doing a great deal of research and reading to get from zero knowledge to a level of competence fairly quickly. This role is best for someone who can put their ego aside at the door. If you are willing to ask the hard questions, willing to ‘look silly’ in service of moving your knowledge further, faster, then you could be a good fit here.