Production Performance Engineer

Location: Leeds

Contract Type: Permanent

The Opportunity

We are recruiting a senior engineering professional to play a critical role in the reliability, performance and safety of a nationally operating locomotive fleet.

This is a management-level position requiring a leader who will further enrich company culture by actively demonstrating core values and behaviours, while driving technical excellence through data-led decision making.

The role sits at the intersection of condition-based maintenance, reliability engineering, and operational support, with significant influence across engineering, operations and production teams.

Key Responsibilities

As RCM & Reliability Engineering Manager, you will:

• Lead the remote analysis of RCM data from locomotive assets to identify faults, trends and early intervention opportunities, reducing in-service failures.
• Ensure high-priority RCM alerts are actioned promptly, reviewing remedial actions and driving improvements in repair quality.
• Develop and implement condition-based maintenance strategies across the RCM-fitted fleet.
• Monitor and manage operational alerts, including braking systems, speed restrictions and locomotive stabling issues.
• Provide technical support to depot teams undertaking maintenance and repairs.
• Manage In-Service Defects (ISDs), liaising with drivers, control, ground staff and depots to achieve optimal return-to-service outcomes.
• Coach and mentor maintenance staff, improving technical knowledge, capability and confidence.
• Develop engineering solutions to enhance safety, reliability and cost efficiency.
• Undertake technical investigations and produce formal reports into incidents, failures and defects across traction and rolling stock.
• Conduct test runs, technical riding and load banking of locomotives where required.
• Support production teams across all UK depots with technical queries and fault resolution.
• Provide structured feedback to specialist system suppliers to support self-learning algorithm optimisation.
• Work closely with operations, engineering and production stakeholders to ensure real-time alerts are acted upon.
• Support nationwide track-side assistance decisions, including for third-party customers.
• Use RCM data and repair history to develop fault-finding guides that reduce downtime and improve first-time fixes.
• Collaborate with fleet maintenance control to optimise asset availability.
• Influence reliability initiatives by trending, interpreting and presenting RCM data.
• Identify operational trends and support the operations function with actionable insights.
• Carry out additional duties as required by the business.

About You

You will be a confident engineering leader with a strong background in traction, rolling stock and reliability-driven environments.

Essential experience includes:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience in traction and rolling stock maintenance or a comparable engineering environment.
• Proven experience within Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) and/or Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) frameworks.
• Strong analytical capability with the confidence to influence decisions at operational and management level.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work cross-functionally across geographically dispersed teams.

Qualifications

• Engineering qualification, preferably ONC level or above in electrical or mechanical engineering.

Why Apply?

• High-impact leadership role within a nationally critical rail operation
• Opportunity to shape maintenance strategy using advanced data analytics
• Broad stakeholder exposure and real influence on fleet performance
• Long-term career progression within a forward-thinking engineering environment

Apply Now

If you’re an experienced reliability or traction engineer ready to step into a strategic, management-level role, we’d like to hear from you.

Apply today or contact Navartis for a confidential discussion.

Navartis Ltd is a specialist recruitment company supplying highly skilled technical and engineering professionals. Navartis is an equal opportunities employer and encourages applications from all suitably qualified individuals.