Product Engineer - Cost Engineering
McKinsey & Company · Wrocław, Poland · 11h ago
Mid levelOn-siteSoftware Engineering
Who you'll work with
Driving lasting impact and building long-term capabilities with our clients is not easy work. You are the kind of person who thrives in a high performance/high reward culture - doing hard things, picking yourself up when you stumble, and having the resilience to try another way forward.
In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we'll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities you need to become a stronger leader faster than you ever thought possible. Your colleagues—at all levels—will invest deeply in your development, just as much as they invest in delivering exceptional results for clients. Every day, you'll receive apprenticeship, coaching, and exposure that will accelerate your growth in ways you won’t find anywhere else.
When you join us, you will have:
- Continuous learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
- A voice that matters: From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
- Global community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions for our clients. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- World-class benefits: On top of a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we provide a comprehensive benefits package to enable holistic well-being for you and your family.
What you'll do
You will act as a knowledge consultant in product development and cost engineering–related projects.
You will be based in our Wroclaw office as part of McKinsey’s Product Development and Procurement team. This team helps clients improve product competitiveness by combining engineering insight, cost transparency, and practical implementation. Our work spans multiple sectors, including automotive and assembly, aerospace, heavy industries, high-tech, telecom, consumer goods, pharma, and medical products.
Your role is designed for an engineer with a broad mechanical profile: someone who can work across industries, understand how products are made, and build robust cost views across a range of parts, materials, and manufacturing technologies.
You will also conduct competitive analysis of products and components, support teardown-based benchmarking, and identify opportunities to improve product design effectiveness, manufacturability, and quality attributes. In addition to client work, you will help strengthen our internal knowledge, tools, and ways of working in cost engineering and product development. This is a role for someone who enjoys solving technical problems, learning quickly across product categories, and bringing a practical engineering perspective to business decisions.
There is a flexibility to hire at junior or analyst level, depending on your experience.
Your background
- Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering, materials engineering, or another relevant engineering field
- 1+ years of experience in product engineering, manufacturing engineering, cost engineering, industrialization, design engineering, or related technical roles
- Ability to assess cost drivers across multiple manufacturing technologies, including machining, casting, forging, stamping, molding, fabrication, and assembly
- Experience with cost modeling, should-costing, value engineering, target costing, product teardown
- Ability to translate technical and manufacturing insights into practical recommendations for product cost, design, and sourcing improvements
- Familiarity with manufacturing methods such as machining, casting, forming, stamping, injection molding, fabrication, and assembly
- Experience in product cost optimization, value engineering, DFMA, target costing, prototyping, supplier discussions, or technical cost analysis is a strong advantage
- Demonstrated analytical and quantitative problem-solving skills with the ability to structure complex topics clearly
- Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and effectively with people at all levels of an organization
- Strong business acumen and curiosity about how engineering choices create commercial impact
- Willingness to travel
- Ability to communicate complex ideas effectively, both verbally and in writing, in English