Lowe
Design Manufacturing Engineer
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Manufacturing Design Engineer
SolidWorks | Stillages | Automation | AI | Advanced Manufacturing
£30,000–£50,000 depending on capability
Bramshall, Uttoxeter | Permanent | Full-Time
Work Location
In person
About Us
Don’t come here just to draw. Come here to change how we engineer.
We’re building a different kind of Design Office at Lowe Stillages & Cages. One where engineers don’t spend their careers repeating the same CAD work. One where SolidWorks, automation, parametric design, manufacturing data and AI are used to make engineering faster, smarter and more powerful. And we’re looking for an ambitious Manufacturing Design Engineer who wants to help build it.
What We Build
Lowe designs and manufactures engineered stillages, transport frames, trolleys and material-handling systems for demanding industrial applications.
We’re growing our manufacturing capability and pushing much further into technically demanding engineered products.
But we’re not interested in simply adding more people and doing things the same way. We’re changing the way engineering works.
Reusable engineering. Parametric design. DriveWorks. Design automation. AI. Manufacturing feedback. FEA. Engineering data. Design for Manufacture.
The objective is simple: Engineer better products — in less time. That’s where you come in.
Your Job
You’ll design real products that get built metres away from you. Not theoretical projects. Not endless CAD exercises.
Real fabricated steel structures. Real loads. Real manufacturing problems. Real customers.
You’ll design:
- Stillages
- Transport frames
- Material-handling systems
- Trolleys
- Dunnage systems
- Fabricated steel structures
- Bespoke engineered handling solutions using SolidWorks, including Weldments and assemblies.
But producing drawings is only part of the job. We want you looking at the entire engineering process and asking:
- Why are we doing this manually?
- Why are we designing this again?
- Could this become parametric?
- Could DriveWorks generate this?
- Could AI remove this repetitive work?
- Can we take hours out of the fabrication?
- Can we make this impossible to manufacture incorrectly?
If you can demonstrate a better way, we want to use it. You’ll get involved in engineering that matters.
You’ll develop your knowledge of:
- Structural load paths
- Stability
- Centre of gravity
- Payload restraint
- Dynamic loads
- Welded structures
- Deflection
- Material selection
- Forklift interfaces
- Stacking
- Lifting and handling
- Proof/load testing
- FEA
- Design for Manufacture
- Engineering risk
- Technical documentation
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You’ll see your designs move directly from SolidWorks onto the factory floor. And you’ll see very quickly whether you’ve engineered them well. That feedback loop is incredibly powerful. Then we want you to automate it. We’re developing our use of:
- DriveWorks
- SolidWorks automation
- Parametric master models
- Configurations and Design Tables
- Macros and APIs
- Automated drawings and BOMs
- AI-assisted engineering
- Engineering data and performance analysis
You don’t need to arrive knowing all of them. But you absolutely need to want to.
If you’re fascinated by what technology is going to do to mechanical engineering over the next five years, you’ll understand why we’re investing in this.
This isn’t an engineering job where change takes three years. You’ll work directly with the people making the decisions.
See something that doesn’t work? Challenge it.
Develop something better? Test it.
Prove it works? We’ll implement it. Then we’ll make it the new standard.
We want engineers who want to build systems, not just work inside them. The factory is part of your engineering environment.
You’ll work closely with experienced fabricators and production.
If something takes twelve hours to fabricate when it should take eight, we want to know why. Was it:
- the design?
- the joint?
- the tolerance?
- the material?
- the sequence?
- the fixture?
- the drawing?
- unnecessary complexity?
Then engineer the problem out. You’ll be able to see the commercial impact of your engineering decisions. That’s how good engineers become exceptional manufacturing engineers.
Who We’re Looking For
You’ll already be a capable Mechanical or Manufacturing Design Engineer with strong SolidWorks skills.
Ideally you’ll have experience with:
- Stillages
- Transport frames
- Returnable packaging
- Automotive dunnage
- Material handling
- Special-purpose machinery
- Lifting equipment
- Fabricated steel products
Direct stillage or closely related material-handling experience is particularly valuable.
You should understand welded fabrication and be capable of producing proper manufacturing-ready designs — not simply attractive CAD models.
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We’re interested in what you can do, how you think and how quickly you can develop.
You’ll probably enjoy this job if…
- You open SolidWorks and immediately see three ways something could be improved.
- Repetitive engineering annoys you. Automation interests you. AI interests you. You want to understand FEA properly. You like manufacturing as much as CAD. You enjoy solving difficult mechanical problems. You want responsibility earlier in your career. You are always looking for better, more efficient methods of working (We love that) And you don’t want to spend the next five years doing the same engineering work you did last year.
What We Offer
£30,000–£50,000 depending on experience, capability and Vision
- Hours: Monday–Thursday: 08:30–16:30, Friday: 08:30–13:30
- Holidays: 25 days’ holiday plus statutory holidays, plus extra holidays for time scale served
- Benefits:
- Company pension
- Free parking
- Direct access to senior decision-makers
- Significant engineering autonomy
- Exposure to SolidWorks automation and DriveWorks
- Opportunity to develop advanced FEA capability
- Opportunity to work with AI and emerging engineering technology
- Real influence over how the Design Office develops
- Clear opportunity for technical progression
The position is based at our manufacturing site in Bramshall, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire ST14 8TD. You will need to live within practical travelling distance and have your own transport. Relocation is not currently available.
Why Join Us
Think you could make our Design Office better? Good. That’s exactly who we’re looking for.
Don’t worry if you don’t tick every box.
If you’re a strong SolidWorks engineer with fabricated-steel experience, understand how things are actually made and are excited by automation, AI and the future of engineering, we want to hear from you.
Shortlisted candidates won’t just be asked conventional interview questions. We’ll talk engineering. We’ll give you real problems. We’ll want to hear what you would change. Because we’re not recruiting someone simply to fill a seat in the Design Office. We’re recruiting someone to help build the Design Office we’re becoming.
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