Furnace Engineer

Furnace Engineer

Eaton's Power Components Division is currently seeking a Furnace Engineer to join the team. This role is based at the Horseheads, NY manufacturing facility.

The expected annual salary range for this role is $86000 - $126000 a year. Please note the salary information shown above is a general guideline only. Salaries are based upon candidate skills, experience, and qualifications, as well as market and business considerations.

What You'll Do:

The Furnace Engineer provides engineering and technical leadership for the operation, reliability, maintenance, improvement, and long-term performance of the plant's vacuum furnace and belt furnace equipment. This role applies expertise in vacuum technology, mechanical systems, electrical systems, controls, and heat-treatment processes to ensure furnace systems operate safely, reliably, efficiently, and within established product and process requirements. The position supports furnace troubleshooting, preventive and predictive maintenance, process optimization, equipment upgrades, capital projects, commissioning, technical documentation, and continuous improvement. The Furnace Engineer partners with Production, Maintenance, Quality, Manufacturing Engineering, EHS, suppliers, and equipment manufacturers to improve furnace availability, product quality, process capability, and equipment reliability.

Essential Functions:

• Asset Reliability: Provide engineering support and technical ownership for vacuum furnaces and belt furnaces equipment, including vacuum systems, hot zones, heating elements, graphite/carbon components, insulation, cooling systems, gas systems, quenching systems, instrumentation, power supplies, and associated mechanical and electrical equipment. Evaluate furnace condition, reliability, capability, and performance. Identify equipment risks and develop long-range recommendations for equipment reliability and technically appropriate corrective actions, upgrades, repairs, or replacement recommendations. Provide technical support for furnace vacuum systems, including vacuum pumps, valves, seals, piping, chambers, instrumentation, pressure/vacuum gauges, and related components. Develop and improve preventive and predictive maintenance strategies for critical furnace systems and components to reduce recurrence and minimize equipment downtime and production disruption. Partner with Maintenance techs and Manufacturing Engineering to improve furnace reliability, availability, maintainability, spare-parts strategies, and long-term equipment health.
• Process Performance: Develop, evaluate, and optimize cycles, heating and cooling profiles, vacuum levels, hold times, gas-quenching conditions, ramp rates, temperature uniformity, and other furnace process parameters to consistently achieve material and product requirements. Apply knowledge of heat transfer, and furnace operation to improve process capability, repeatability, cycle efficiency, throughput, product quality, and equipment performance. Design and optimize precise temperature zones, belt speeds, and heating/cooling rates to meet needed specifications. Control hydrogen and nitrogen (purge gas) flow rates and dew points to ensure effective oxide layer reduction and prevent contamination. Partner with Quality and Manufacturing Engineering to maintain robust process controls and support furnace qualification, process validation, temperature uniformity activities, instrumentation requirements, audits, corrective actions, process documentation, and investigation of furnace-related product or process nonconformances. Support deployment of the Eaton Quality System and Eaton Continuous Improvement by identifying opportunities to improve furnace reliability, cycle time, process capability, energy efficiency, throughput, product quality, maintainability, and operating cost.
• Controls and Troubleshooting: Provide technical leadership for troubleshooting complex mechanical, electrical, vacuum, instrumentation, heating, cooling, gas, and control-system failures affecting furnace operation. Perform structured root-cause analysis of recurring equipment failures, process interruptions, vacuum issues, temperature deviations, system alarms, control failures, and other furnace-related problems. Provide engineering support for furnace PLCs, HMIs, control systems, instrumentation, sensors, thermocouples, temperature controls, alarms, interlocks, data-acquisition systems, and electrical components.
• Engineering Projects: Develop and optimize mechanical designs associated with furnace systems, including hot zones, carbon/graphite components, fixtures, equipment modifications, and supporting mechanical systems using appropriate CAD/design tools. Develop technical specifications, drawings, layouts, bills of material, scopes of work, and other engineering documentation required for furnace repairs, modifications, upgrades, and new equipment. Maintain appropriate furnace engineering records and ensure documentation reflects significant equipment or process changes. Provide engineering leadership for furnace-related capital and expense projects, including furnace replacement, refurbishment, hot-zone upgrades, control-system modifications, vacuum-system improvements, utility modifications, and installation of new equipment. Coordinate suppliers, contractors, installation activities, equipment startup, testing, validation, and commissioning while monitoring safety, quality, cost, schedule, and production impact.
• Safety and Risk Management: Ensure furnace engineering activities support applicable plant safety and EHS requirements. Identify and address hazards associated with high temperatures, electrical energy, stored energy, vacuum systems, gases, cooling systems, mechanical systems, and maintenance activities. Design, inspect, and maintain fail-safe systems, including burn-off pilots, nitrogen purge interlocks, gas sensors, and explosion-relief doors. Support LOTO/energy-control requirements, safe maintenance practices, equipment guarding, interlocks, contractor safety, and risk assessments associated with furnace equipment and projects. Evaluate furnace-related technical risks and initiate corrective actions when conditions could affect employee safety, product quality, equipment integrity, environmental compliance, or production continuity. Partner with Production, Maintenance techs, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, EHS, Supply Chain, equipment manufacturers, contractors, and technical suppliers to address furnace performance and manufacturing requirements.

What Will Make You Successful?

An ideal candidate functions with a high degree of autonomy and technical judgment across assigned furnace equipment and thermal-processing responsibilities. You have excellent oral and written communication skills and effectively communicate technical information with plant leadership, Production, Maintenance techs, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, EHS, suppliers, contractors, and equipment manufacturers. Effective project-management and organizational skills, including the ability to manage multiple furnace projects, equipment issues, and improvement activities concurrently while controlling scope, cost, schedule, safety, quality, and disruption to plant operations will be integral to this role's success. You will maintain critical working relationships with furnace OEMs, vacuum-system suppliers, controls specialists, engineering firms, contractors, equipment manufacturers, and other external technical resources required to maintain and improve furnace performance. You independently identify and evaluate furnace and process risks, develop technically appropriate recommendations, establish priorities, and escalate significant risks that could affect employee safety, product quality, production continuity, delivery, equipment reliability, or cost.

Qualifications:

Required (Basic) Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Chemical Engineering or a related technical field from an accredited institution
• Minimum 2 years of experience with continuous belt furnaces or high-temperature atmosphere furnaces.
• Strong technical knowledge of vacuum and thermal-processing furnace systems, including vacuum pumps and instrumentation, brazing metallurgy, heat treatment, heat transfer, thermal cycles, temperature profiles, and process optimization.
• Strong understanding of furnace mechanical systems and process gases, including hot zones, heating elements, graphite/carbon components, insulation and cooling systems, chambers, piping, valves, seals, gas-quenching systems, hydrogen safety, gas blending, and gas-flow dynamics.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot and improve complex furnace systems, including mechanical, electrical, vacuum, controls, and thermal-process issues using structured root-cause analysis, preventive/predictive maintenance, failure analysis, and equipment life-cycle management.
• Eaton will not consider applicants for employment immigration sponsorship or support for this position. This means that Eaton will not support any CPT, OPT, or STEM OPT plans, F-1 to H-1B, H-1B cap registration, O-1, E-3, TN status, I-485 job portability, etc.
• No relocation benefit is being offered for this position. Only candidates within a 50-mile radius of Horseheads, NY will be considered. Active-Duty Military Service member candidates are exempt from the geographical area limitation.

Additional Information:

• Must be capable of coordinating work within an active manufacturing environment, including planned furnace outages, major repairs, rebuilds, equipment installations, commissioning, testing, and emergency maintenance, while minimizing risk and disruption to production.
• May be required to provide technical support for urgent furnace failures or process problems outside normal working hours when conditions could significantly affect safety, production, product quality, delivery, or critical equipment availability.
• Work requires periodic presence in manufacturing and maintenance areas and around high-temperature equipment, electrical equipment, vacuum systems, cooling systems, industrial gases, and other operating machinery. Appropriate PPE and established safety requirements must be followed.

All positions may require participation in video and in-person interviews as part of the hiring process. All candidates will be evaluated based on job-related competencies, and all candidates' privacy rights and data security will be protected in accordance with applicable laws.

We are committed to ensuring equal employment opportunities for all job applicants and employees. Employment decisions are based upon job-related reasons regardless of an applicant's race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation