Product Engineer / Product Manager

Product Engineer / Product Manager – Surrey, BC

Employer: Murray Latta Progressive Machine | Kimwood product portfolio

Location: Surrey, BC | Full-time, permanent Murray Latta employee | Based at our Surrey facility

Annual base salary: $115,000–$125,000 CAD, depending on relevant experience and qualifications, plus applicable company benefits.

Travel: Regular visits to Kimwood in Cottage Grove, Oregon during the transition, followed by periodic Kimwood and customer-site travel.

Join Our Team

If you enjoy figuring out how a machine works, talking through a problem with the people using it and seeing your solution built, this role offers that connection. You will work between the drawing office, shop floor and customer site, with responsibility for following problems through to a practical result.

You will be employed by Murray Latta Progressive Machine in Surrey. MLPM owns Kimwood Machinery in Oregon and is transferring its engineering support to Murray Latta, starting with wide-belt sanders. You will learn from Kimwood’s senior engineer, progressively take over technical support and help develop its next aftermarket products.

Reports to the Chief Operating Officer, with dotted-line reporting to MLPM’s Director of Engineering and Business Development.

Why Murray Latta

See your ideas become working machinery. Talk through a design with a machinist, work out a fit with the assembly team and hear directly from the customer using the equipment. At Murray Latta, you can follow the whole problem through and see the difference your engineering makes.

Work with people who enjoy figuring things out. Our work calls for curiosity, resourcefulness and sound judgement. You will learn from experienced engineers and tradespeople, contribute your own ideas and have room to take initiative. We value people who listen, help each other and do what they say they will do.

Do work people depend on. Across Murray Latta, our work supports industrial production, transportation and mountain recreation. For Kimwood, that means helping customers operate machinery safely and reliably, solve recurring problems and get more useful life from existing equipment. A well-designed repair or upgrade can avoid unnecessary replacement and keep a production team working.

Help shape what comes next. You will learn directly from Kimwood’s experienced senior engineer, preserve knowledge built over decades and help turn customer needs into the next generation of upgrades and rebuild packages. Your ideas can influence what we develop, how we build it and how well it serves the customer.

What You Will Do

• Learn Kimwood’s machinery alongside its experienced senior engineer, shop team and product-support specialist, beginning with wide-belt sanders.
• Resolve shop and customer questions, identify legacy parts, measure components and develop practical repair, replacement and retrofit solutions.
• Prepare designs, calculations, drawings, bills of material and instructions. Follow MLPM’s quality system and applicable EGBC Permit to Practice procedures, including checking, revision control and appropriate professional review.
• Turn historical drawings and service experience into reliable, searchable product knowledge that colleagues can use.
• Meet with customers and internal teams to define problems, explain options and keep agreed actions moving through to completion.
• Develop sander upgrades and rebuild packages, progressing from customer needs and business cases through design, pilot planning and controlled release.

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related discipline, with approximately 5–10 years of relevant industrial machinery or heavy-manufacturing experience.
• Practical knowledge of mechanisms, shafts, bearings, rolls, drives, hydraulics, pneumatics, materials, fits and tolerances, supported by sound engineering calculations.
• SolidWorks proficiency and confidence interpreting AutoCAD 2D drawings and scanned legacy records; experience preparing manufacturing drawings and bills of material.
• Hands-on measurement and reverse-engineering capability, with the judgement to identify missing information and seek the right review.
• Excellent verbal and written communication. You listen carefully, explain technical issues clearly and work comfortably with customers, tradespeople and internal teams.
• A record of moving work forward: setting priorities, agreeing next steps, following up and raising problems before they become delays.

P.Eng. registration in British Columbia, or eligibility and willingness to register with Engineers and Geoscientists BC, is preferred.

Forestry equipment, legacy-machine support, controls integration, aftermarket development and engineering document-control experience are valuable assets. Product-management experience is helpful; there is room to develop it in this role.

Your First Year

Progress from mentored support to independent routine work, with reliable technical records, defined backups and clear escalation routes. Establish a prioritized product roadmap and advance a sander upgrade through concept and pilot planning.

How to Apply

Apply through LinkedIn, or send your resume and a brief cover letter to Erwin Bartz at ebartz@mlpmachine.com.

For email applications, use “Kimwood Product Engineer / Product Manager” as your subject line.

Tell us about a machinery problem you helped solve, how you worked with the customer or shop team and how you brought the work to completion.

Explore Murray Latta at https://www.mlpmachine.com.

Applications will be reviewed as received.