Vehicle Launch Engineer - Body Exteriors

Our mission? To bridge the talent gap with precision—Right Talent. Right Time. Right Place. Right Price.

Location: Louisville, KY (Onsite)

Duration: 12+ Months with possibility of conversion to FTE.

Pay Range: $50 to $55 per hour on W2Position Overview: You will be a key contributor within a world class automotive body exterior engineering team, responsible for driving exterior systems from design intent through prototype builds, pilot, and job one at the assembly plant. This is an engineering side launch seat, not a member of the plant launch team. You will partner daily with the existing plant launch group and the dimensional analysis resources behind them, while remaining accountable to the exterior engineering organization for how the commodity builds. The role owns launch readiness for exterior commodities including fascias, claddings, moldings, spoilers, glazing, ornamentation, and sensor apertures, along with on body, underbody, and under hood components in the exterior trim scope. You will be the exterior team's presence at the build, translating engineering intent into repeatable plant execution and closing issues fast enough to protect program timing.

Key Responsibilities: Own launch readiness for assigned exterior commodities across all build phases, from early prototype and integration builds through pilot, pre-production, and start of production. Lead build event support at the assembly plant and prototype shop, including part staging, first time build documentation, issue capture, containment, and daily issue review. Diagnose fit and dimensional conditions on the floor and drive them to a suspect part or process before full measurement data is available, using checking fixtures, adjacent gap comparisons across interfaces, side to side and vehicle to vehicle comparison, and assembly sequence logic. Serve as the primary interface between exterior DREs, the plant launch team, manufacturing engineering, STA, and quality on part availability, buildability, and process capability. Drive root cause and corrective action on exterior fit, finish, gap and flush, squeak and rattle, water leak, and craftsmanship findings discovered during build and validation.

Required Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial, or Automotive Engineering, or equivalent experience.5+ years of automotive engineering experience with direct involvement in vehicle launch, prototype builds, or plant side product engineering. Hands on experience with exterior body commodities such as fascias, bumpers, claddings, moldings, spoilers, glazing, or ornamentation. Demonstrated personal ownership of launch issue resolution, including root cause analysis, corrective action, and cross functional escalation, with specific issues the candidate can walk through from discovery to verified closure. Applied command of dimensional fundamentals, including GD&T, datum and locator strategy, degrees of freedom and over constraint, tolerance stack up, and dimensional measurement methods.

Preferred Skills: Prior in plant launch experience at an OEM, including first build support, issue tracking, and containment decisions made in real time. Prior experience launching an electric vehicle program or a new nameplate at a greenfield or low volume plant. Experience with Ford or other OEM launch processes and terminology. Proficiency with CATIA V5, 3DEXPERIENCE, Siemens NX, or Teamcenter. Experience with dimensional and quality tools such as CMM data interpretation, blue light scanning, checking fixture use, or variation simulation analysis. Exposure to exterior sensor apertures, sensor cleaning systems, or ADAS related exterior integration and the launch challenges they introduce. Background in Class A surface quality, paint and film processes, or adhesive and fastening systems. Experience managing issue tracking systems such as Jira or equivalent in a launch environment.