Principal Product Engineer

About the job

About Johnson Controls
Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, helps customers use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions, and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services and an industry-leading field organization, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results and help move society forward.

Visit johnsoncontrols.com for more information and follow @Johnsoncontrols on social platforms.

What you will do
Johnson Controls is seeking a driven and technical Product Engineer to join our Air-Cooled Centrifugal Chillers team at the Advanced Development and Engineering Center in New Freedom, PA. In this high-impact role, you’ll be at the heart of our industry-leading, high-volume product lines—ensuring they consistently deliver exceptional performance in quality, cost efficiency, and manufacturability.

You’ll develop deep product expertise and play a pivotal role connecting design engineering with a global network of air-cooled centrifugal manufacturing facilities. This is a hands-on, execution-focused opportunity where your work will directly influence product performance and operational excellence—ideal for someone who thrives on ownership, problem-solving, and driving continuous improvement in a fast-paced environment. This position is based onsite at our office in New Freedom, PA. Candidates must be commuting distance to this location, or able to relocate. Various relocation packages are available.

• How you will do it
• Design-to-Factory Bridge
• Serve as the primary technical interface between the air cooled centrifugal design engineering team and the global network of air cooled centrifugal manufacturing facilities — Stiva (Monterrey, MX), Pune (India), Izmir (Turkey), and Guangzhou (China) — ensuring that engineering intent is fully translated into executable factory process.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, and Production teams across factory sites on-site and remotely to resolve drawing conflicts, tolerance concerns, and producibility issues in existing product documentation.
• Participate in Change Control Board (CCB) reviews; author and process Engineering Change Notices (ECNs) with full factory impact analysis including effectivity date planning, BOM accuracy, and work instruction alignment.
• Work closely with Contract Engineering teams to ensure that customer-specific modifications to standard product are engineered within factory capability constraints.

• Quality Improvement
• Own recurring and systemic quality issues on the air cooled centrifugal product line, driving root cause analysis through structured methodologies (8D, A3) and translating findings into permanent engineering corrective actions.
• Implement DFMEA updates, tolerance studies, and design-level countermeasures for in-production quality defects identified through factory audits, warranty data, or field feedback.
• Partner with the Quality Engineering team to disposition nonconforming material and determine engineering accept/reject criteria.
• Support PPAP activities for component or supplier changes that result from quality-driven engineering modifications.

• Design for Manufacturability (DFM) Improvements
• Identify DFM gaps in existing product designs that result in assembly difficulty, rework, scrap, or extended factory cycle time, and champion engineering changes to address them.
• Participate in DFM review events for product line changes, representing the factory's practical assembly perspective and ensuring new configurations can be built reliably at rate.
• Work with Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering to validate that DFM improvements deliver measurable improvement on the production floor.

• Cost Management
• Identify and lead cost reduction opportunities within the existing air cooled centrifugal product line, including material substitution, specification rationalization, component standardization, and BOM simplification.
• Develop engineering cases for value engineering changes, providing technical justification, risk assessment, and implementation plans to gain cross-functional approval.
• Track implemented cost improvement projects against savings targets; maintain project status visibility for leadership reporting.
• Engage with Supply Chain and Procurement to evaluate supplier-driven alternatives, ensure engineering requirements are maintained, and qualify new parts into the product.

• PTS and Field Support
• Provide engineering support to the Product Technical Support (PTS) team for escalated field issues on air cooled centrifugal product, including analysis of field failure reports, return material evaluation, and development of field-applicable corrective actions.
• Author and support issuance of technical communications, service advisories, and field upgrade kits as needed.
• Support occasional field visits to investigate high-priority customer issues requiring engineering-level analysis.

• What you will need
• Required
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or closely related engineering discipline.
• 7 years of experience in product engineering, sustaining engineering, or manufacturing engineering for complex mechanical equipment.
• Understanding of mechanical and thermodynamic principles
• Proven experience executing engineering changes in a manufacturing environment, including BOM management, drawing updates, and cross-functional coordination through change control processes.
• Familiarity with SAP or equivalent ERP systems for BOM management, material status, and engineering documentation.
• Experience with quality problem-solving tools (8D, A3, DFMEA) and demonstrated ability to drive issues to root cause and permanent corrective action.
• Able to travel up to 20%

• Preferred
• Direct experience with air cooled centrifugal chiller products, including familiarity with compressor staging, heat exchanger design, and refrigerant circuit architecture.
• Experience in a factory-connected product engineering role (factory product engineer, sustaining engineer, or DFM engineer) in which direct engagement with manufacturing operations was a primary job function.
• Familiarity with JCI engineering governance processes including ECN, CCB, P-status lifecycle, and PLM/Windchill documentation standards.
• Experience supporting PTS or field engineering functions, including analysis of field failure data and development of field corrective actions.

HIRING SALARY RANGE: $105,000 - $135,000 (Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.) This role offers a competitive Bonus plan that will take into account individual, group, and corporate performance. This position includes a competitive benefits package. The posted salary range reflects the target compensation for this role. However, we recognize that exceptional candidates may bring unique skills and experiences that exceed the typical profile. If you believe your background warrants consideration beyond the stated range, we encourage you to apply. To support an efficient and fair hiring process, we may use technology assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help identify and evaluate candidates. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by human reviewers. For details, please visit the About Us tab on the Johnson Controls Careers site at https://jobs.johnsoncontrols.com/about-us

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Johnson Controls International plc. is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a qualified individual with a disability or any other characteristic protected by law. To view more information about your equal opportunity and non-discrimination rights as a candidate, visit EEO is the Law . If you are an individual with a disability and you require an accommodation during the application process, please visit here .