Engineer III, Mechanical

Work Schedule

Environmental Conditions

Job Description

At Thermo Fisher Scientific, you’ll do meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Our teams are united by our Mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer. We provide colleagues with opportunities to grow while developing innovative solutions that address complex scientific and manufacturing challenges. 

Position Summary 

• We are seeking a Engineer III – Mechanical to lead should-cost analysis and cost engineering activities across complex mechanical components, assemblies, and products. This role will develop robust, data-driven cost models that improve cost transparency, enable design-to-cost decisions, strengthen supplier negotiations, and identify sustainable value improvement opportunities. 

• You will partner with Design Engineering, Procurement, Category Management, Manufacturing, and suppliers to understand product cost drivers and evaluate alternative materials, manufacturing processes, and design concepts. The role requires strong manufacturing process knowledge, commercial awareness, and the ability to translate engineering data into actionable cost insights. 
  

Key Responsibilities 

• Develop detailed should-cost and clean-sheet cost models for mechanical components, subassemblies, and complete products 

• Analyze cost drivers including raw materials, manufacturing processes, cycle time, tooling, labor, machine rates, overhead, yield, and logistics 

• Partner with Design Engineering to embed design-to-cost and value engineering principles throughout the product development lifecycle 

• Perform supplier quote analysis and cost breakdown assessments, identifying gaps between supplier quotations and should-cost estimates 

• Collaborate with Procurement and Category Management to provide fact-based cost insights that support supplier negotiations and sourcing decisions 

• Evaluate alternative materials, manufacturing processes, design concepts, and sourcing scenarios to improve cost competitiveness without compromising quality or performance 

• Assess supplier manufacturing processes and recommend opportunities to improve productivity, manufacturability, and cost efficiency 

• Build product-level cost models by consolidating component, assembly, tooling, processing, and supply chain costs 

• Perform cost-benefit, total cost of ownership (TCO), make-versus-buy, and manufacturing footprint analyses where applicable 

• Establish standard work, methodologies, assumptions, and validation practices for should costing 

• Improve cost-model accuracy by benchmarking estimates against supplier quotations, actual costs, and manufacturing data 

• Lead continuous improvement of costing methodologies, databases, tools, and analytical processes 

• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to engineers and cross-functional teams on cost engineering and design-to-cost practices 

• Communicate cost insights, opportunities, risks, and recommendations clearly to technical and business stakeholders 
  

Minimum Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Automobile Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, or a related engineering discipline 

• 10+ years of experience in should costing, cost engineering, manufacturing cost analysis, or value engineering 

• Demonstrated experience developing detailed cost models for mechanical components and manufacturing processes
  

Preferred Qualifications 

• Deep manufacturing knowledge across CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, casting, forging, plastics/injection molding, composites, rubber, metal injection molding (MIM), and related processes 

• Strong understanding of secondary operations, heat treatment, surface treatments, coatings, finishing, and assembly processes 

• Ability to interpret complex engineering drawings, GD&T, tolerances, material specifications, and BOM structures 

• Working knowledge of engineering and drawing standards such as ASME, ANSI, ISO, DIN, JIS, and BS 

• Hands-on experience with should-cost and manufacturing cost tools such as aPriori, DFMA, Costimator, or equivalent platforms 

• Experience with TCO, NPV, make-versus-buy, supplier cost breakdown, and cost-driver analysis 

• Proficiency in interpreting 2D/3D engineering data using tools such as Creo, SolidWorks, AutoCAD, or equivalent CAD platforms 

• Experience supporting VAVE, design-to-cost, teardown, benchmarking, and cost reduction initiatives 

• Strong understanding of global manufacturing economics, supplier capabilities, and regional cost drivers 

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to convert complex technical and commercial data into actionable recommendations 

• Demonstrated ability to influence Engineering, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, and Supplier teams in a global, matrixed environment 

• Strong communication, presentation, negotiation-support, and stakeholder management skills
  

Key Skills 

• Should Costing, Clean-Sheet Costing, Design-to-Cost, VAVE, Cost Breakdown Analysis, Supplier Quote Analysis, Manufacturing Process Costing, Machining, Sheet Metal, Casting, Forging, Plastics, MIM, GD&T, aPriori, DFMA, Costimator, TCO/NPV, CAD Interpretation, Supplier Negotiation Support, Make-vs-Buy, Cost Benchmarking, Value Engineering
  

Key Competencies 

• Cost and commercial acumen 

• Manufacturing process expertise 

• Data-driven decision-making 

• Structured problem-solving 

• Cross-functional influence 

• Supplier collaboration 

• Continuous improvement 

• Ownership and execution discipline