Product Development Engineer - Laundry

About Midea America Corp

Midea America Corp., is one of the world’s largest home appliance brands, offering the most comprehensive selection of products in the world to fully serve the needs of day-to-day living at home, at work, or anywhere else you go. In North America we strive to aim high, put the customer first, transform and innovate the marketplace, utilizing our commitment, dedication, inclusion, and partnership with our teams. Midea America is a subsidiary of the Midea Group, a global company with over 150,000 employees and operations in more than 195 countries. As a publicly listed company, we are ranked #231 as a Fortune Global 500 company and offer one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry.

Job Summary

The Product Development Engineer is responsible for defining and validating new laundry product specifications for the North American market, and for supporting the China-based R&D team through the full product development lifecycle. This role starts upstream of design — establishing functional and performance requirements through competitor benchmarking, product performance testing, and a strong understanding of North American consumer habits, attitudes, competitive landscape, and applicable standards and regulations — and stays engaged through prototype verification, root-cause problem solving, and field test support. Home appliance product engineering typically requires a blend of mechanical, electrical, and electronics expertise, so this role calls for a systems-engineering mindset and hands-on, multidisciplinary capability rather than deep specialization in a single discipline. Given the peaks-and-valleys nature of NPI work (New Product Introduction), this engineer will also have periodic bandwidth to contribute to future product improvement concepts and new capabilities.

This position is full-time and fully on-site, Monday through Friday, in Louisville, KY. Some domestic and international travel is required.

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Define new product specifications for the North American market through competitor benchmarking, product performance testing, and evaluation — covering functional and performance requirements, not just physical/dimensional aspects.
• Translate North American consumer habits, attitudes, and the competitive landscape into concrete, testable engineering requirements.
• Maintain working knowledge of North American standards and regulations relevant to laundry appliances and ensure specifications and engineering solutions reflect those requirements.
• Document and clearly communicate engineering requirements to R&D engineering teams in China, ensuring requirements are correctly understood and translated into design.
• Support the R&D team throughout all project phases, acting as the North American engineering voice through concept, design, verification, validation, and launch.
• Identify problems, perform root cause analysis on design or performance issues, propose corrective solutions, and track validation and implementation through resolution.
• Support execution of field tests, including logistics, data collection, and results analysis.
• Verify that functional prototypes adhere to proposed specifications through structured testing and evaluation as they become available.
• Set up automated lab test benches to control and monitor product inputs and outputs, incorporating sensors, data-log shields, and microcontroller platforms such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
• Write basic control and data-acquisition scripts (C++ or Python) to support automated test setups and data analysis.
• Contribute to future product improvement concepts — enhanced or new features and capabilities.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, System Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related discipline.
• 3–6 years of product engineering or product development experience, ideally in consumer appliances or another regulated consumer products industry.

Qualifications

• Hybrid engineering foundation spanning mechanical, electrical, and electronics disciplines — a systems-engineering mindset rather than single-discipline specialization.
• Hands-on lab skills: able to build and operate test benches, integrate sensors and actuators, and set up basic prototype test-bench control using platforms such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
• Basic proficiency in a programming language (C++ or Python) sufficient to write control/data-acquisition scripts and process test data.
• Strong analytical and root-cause problem-solving skills.
• Working knowledge of North American home appliance standards and regulations and how they shape engineering decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate requirements clearly for a globally distributed R&D team, including cross-cultural and cross-time-zone collaboration with colleagues in China.
• Comfortable working directly with functional prototypes and running structured verification/validation testing.
• Organized and detail-oriented, capable of managing multiple concurrent project phases.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience with competitor benchmarking or product teardown analysis.
• Experience collaborating with international or remote R&D teams.
• Exposure to consumer research or collaboration with a Consumer & Market Insights (CMI) team.
• Master's degree in relevant engineering discipline.

Midea America Corp. is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.