Research Engineer - Performance

The Performance Research Engineer will play a critical role in advancing TaylorMade's leadership in golf equipment performance. This role bridges physical testing, player testing, Tour-level data collection, and advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights that influence product design, product validation, and performance optimization. The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer with strong mechanical aptitude, advanced data skills, deep golf intuition, and the ability to translate player feedback into clear engineering direction.  Essential Functions and Key Responsibilities: Lead the design and execution of advanced performance testing protocols for golf clubs and balls, including lab, player, field, and Tour-based testing environments.  Serve as a category-focused Performance Engineering owner for one or more product areas, with potential emphasis across Woods, Irons, Putter/Wedge, or cross-category initiatives.  Support PGA/LPGA Tour and elite-athlete testing by collecting clean, repeatable, decision-ready data while operating professionally and respectfully in player-facing environments.  Analyze large datasets from lab, player, and field testing to extract insights on ball speed, launch, spin, consistency, delivery, impact location, dispersion, and performance tradeoffs.  Translate Tour and player-test observations into clear engineering recommendations, product questions, validation plans, and follow-up experiments.  Develop and maintain automated data pipelines, dashboards, and reporting tools for performance tracking, project communication, and cross-functional decision-making.  Collaborate with R&D, Product Development, Tour, Fitting, Consumer Insights, and Analytics teams to integrate player feedback and real-world data into product design.  Conduct competitor benchmarking and present findings that influence product strategy, category positioning, and performance targets.  Support the development of new test methods, instrumentation, normalization approaches, and repeatable workflows that improve testing quality and organizational leverage.  Help train engineers and player test analysts on Tour-facing testing etiquette, data collection standards, and best practices for working with elite athletes.  Performs other related duties and assignments as required. Knowledge and Skills Requirements: Strong golf background, with low single-digit handicap preferred, and a deep understanding of equipment-player interaction.  Demonstrated experience designing statistically rigorous experiments, including power analysis, Design of Experiments (DOE), measurement system analysis, and confidence-based decision making.  Experience applying AI-assisted workflows to experimental planning, statistical analysis, test automation, reporting, and synthesis of complex engineering datasets  Ability to communicate complex findings clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including R&D leadership, category teams,…