R&D Engineer Consumer Tread Compounds

Bridgestone Europe is a key regional subsidiary of Tokyo-based Bridgestone Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of tires and rubber products. Bridgestone Corporation and its subsidiaries employ over 140.000 people around the world, operate 178 plants in 25 nations and sell products in more than 150 countries. One in five vehicles in the world drives on the company’s tires. "Serving Society with Superior Quality” has been our mission since Shojiro Ishibashi founded Bridgestone in 1931. Our founder’s original vision and philosophy drives us to make life safer and more fulfilling for people everywhere. That means pursuing the highest quality in products, in service, in technology and in all our corporate activities. This philosophy is embedded in the way we work. We call it "The Bridgestone Essence" and it embodies the spirit that we all share and our desire to build a better Bridgestone for our customers, shareholders, business partners and, of course, our employees.

Bridgestone has opportunities to develop and grow your working career.  As the world’s largest tire and rubber company, we strive to offer development opportunities in our organization.  Your ability to apply engineering technics to identify solutions as well as apply creativity to improve performance and solve challenges is critical.  Your ideas and concepts will impact our ability to design and develop products to meet the future needs of our European consumers.

We are looking for a

R&D Engineer

Tread compound development

Job Description

We are looking for a position as an R&D Engineer for Tread Compound Development team, within MID – Material Innovation and Development organization.

The R&D engineer will lead efforts to develop and validate new compounds for Bridgestone consumer and commercial products, in line with Product Performance RoadMap and with Corporate Sustainability Roadmap.

Specifically, she/he will join the team responsible for all casing compound line-up in Consumer and Commercial area from ideation up to first industrial scale production of the compound, and to provide technical support to BSEMEA operations.

In this position, she/he will be responsible to manage new Tread compound development programs realizing virtual and physical tire prototypes for performances assessment, leading FMEA preparation and definition/execution of validation plan, promote and support new lab testing procedures and release technologies to next gate for introduction in production plants.

At same time she/he will contribute to shape the technology and process streams needed for future technology roadmap in close collaboration with MID specialists, Raw material team, Material Lab team and Academia.

Also, she/he will support manufacturing operations by contributing to compound processability and/or performance improvement whenever required.  

Core Responsibilities and working relations:

• To contribute to Tread technical roadmap of Consumer domain through compound design and validation activities as per project assignments.
• To execute and secure risk analysis for application on tire for the assigned tread compound development projects.
• Organization and management of Design Review meetings/presentations to involved stakeholders/ and to management.
• Support and trigger discussion on new technology needs and characterization methodologies to Raw Materials, Material Lab, Tread and casing Technology validation teams.
• To contribute to Bridgestone Sustainability roadmap realization.
• To contribute to digital mindset and digital designing approach spreading.

• To identify and support implementation of efficiency opportunities in Way of Working and processes.
• To participate in identifying and launching innovation projects within MID and more in general in R&D.
• Work effectively with R&D researchers, technicians and management of Bridgestone Technical Center Europe, actively taking part to R&D cross-functional teams.
• Collaborate with Bridgestone Corporate Functions, Bridgestone America and Bridgestone Japan, Bridgestone EMIA manufacturing plants.
• Work and interact with Bridgestone external partners such as academia, research institutes and lab equipment providers.

Requirements:

Education:

• Master’s Degree in Materials Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Polymers Physics.
• PhD in materials and/or polymers science is highly appreciated.

Qualification:

• Proven experience at least on one of the following fields: polymers science and technology, rubber chemicals, filler technology development in tire industry, rubber goods.
• Tread and/or casing compound or material development experience within tyre/rubber industry is highly appreciated.

Ideal candidate should demonstrate:

• Problem solving and project management skills.
• Analytical skill, Logic Thinking and strong mechanism understanding mindset.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Results oriented, self-motivated, creative and collaborative.
• Curiosity, think-out-of-the-box mindset, willingness to learn from new and often unprecedented technical challenges.
• Ability to work with different pace, timeframe, organizations: with long term innovation as well as with supply crisis management, with other R&D entities as well as plants.
• Digital mindset: solid knowledge of MS Office package and preferably knowledge of digital software as Minitab, Matlab, Python.
• Experience with simulation tools in the field of Computational Chemistry and/or FEM is a plus.
• Fluency in written and spoken English is mandatory.
• Ability to work at global level with multicultural environment.

Position is based at the Technical Center in Rome; Salary and position will be tailored according to the profile.