Senior Technician - Pattern Maker

Duties / Responsibilities (Including Objectives of the role):

Lotus are in a stage of unprecedented growth with multiple projects being worked on by dedicated engineers, designers and manufacturing operations staff. Behind all this are a highly skilled and specialist team of Vehicle Engineering technical personnel supporting projects and vehicle programmes. We're looking for a Senior Technician - Pattern Maker to join our workshop teams to support our new and existing car programmes, working across exciting projects on our High Performance Sports Car, and 3rd party engineering projects.   

You'll be working closely with Engineering and Design to support Lotus Cars or specific Lotus Projects with physical properties including:- 

  • Seating and interior buck development and modification
  • Building Seating bucks from a blank sheet of paper
  • Jig and fixtures creation
  • Structural Armature creation for full scale bucks and aerodynamic models
  • Aerodynamics model creation
  • Prototype creation in multiple materials inc. Wood, GRP and composite materials
  • Pattern, tool and mould creation
  • Creating test models to support engineering development projects
  • Producing specific properties to support client design projects
  • Mounting of test equipment and preparation of test models.
  • Stillage and storage facility creation

 Delivery of these day-to-day requirements will necessitate:

  • Apprenticeship in pattern making or model making (desirable)
  • Good carpentry and non metallic material working skills and experience
  • Possessing the ability to comprehend written or verbal instructions together with engineering data including drawings and sketches, clarifying and challenging where appropriate, to deliver specific requirements in accordance with project demands.
  • Possessing the ability to organise a small team and lead others as required
  • To be able to liaise confidently with the engineering office and design studio
  • To be aware and observant of Health & Safety policies of the company and be able to safely use workshop equipment: including all wood working machinery, lathes, grinders traditional measuring equipment and measuring masts with surface plates.
  • To carry out all tasks as efficiently / effectively as possible in conjunction with other Staff / Areas.

Qualifications and Experience 

Dynamic, highly motivated with good communication skills and an ability to work as part of a team, the successful candidate must be willing to learn and take on new challenges and have the ability to guide a team to deliver projects to challenging time scales.

Working primarily in a pattern shop environment with wood working machinery, candidates must have intimate knowledge of all wood working and pattern making tools with relevant certificates where required. Additionally, an apprenticeship and/or time served experience with relevant qualifications (BTEC and NVQ) would be desirable.

Candidates should have pattern making and hard modelling experience with a basic technical understanding of cars, display a strong capability for use of traditional measuring equipment, masts and surface plates whilst possessing ability to visualise and create 3D objects from drawing and sometimes sketch data.

Ideally candidates will have worked in a pattern or model shop in a large automotive company and understand the typical requirements, processes and equipment use. Similarly, hard modelling, 3D printing and laminating experience would be desirable.  Experience generating seating and interior bucks for an automotive company would be a significant advantage.

It is expected that candidates will possess the ability to discuss projects with supervision and project engineers to determine objectives (including timing) and be able to organise project workload in conjunction with task requirements. Similarly, the successful candidate will be able to guide other less experienced members of the team as well as schedule, monitor and adjust teams as required to meet project deadlines.

Other information

  • Responsibilities will include monitoring material usage to enable stock levels to remain adequate for general demand 

  • The role requires minimal travel but there may be occasional requirements to support off site test activities for example wind tunnel testing

  • Challenging elements of the role will be leading a small team to meet demanding requirements and time scales.

  • Decision making required within this role will be determining best medium and method of production for parts and components on a daily basis. The wrong choice may delay progress or prevent a satisfactory evaluation resulting in a failed test or review.