Print Applications Specialist

The Quality and Engineering team makes sure every piece comes off the press exactly the way it was designed. We’re a hands-on mix of quality and process engineers, prepress specialists and manufacturing leads at our East Providence, Rhode Island facility, and we’re looking for a Print Applications Specialist to join us. You’ll own the press-facing layer of manufacturing: the DFEs and RIPs that run our presses, the color they hold on the sheet, the interfaces that move jobs onto them, and the training that helps the people running production get the most out of all of it.

Between a customer’s file and a finished print sits a lot of clever machinery - and someone has to make sure it all does what the job intended. That’s where you come in. You’ll configure and look after the press front ends across our estate, keep the color they hold honest, own the job and status data flowing between our manufacturing systems and the floor, and bring new presses and equipment into production.

The work is hands-on and diagnostic. Most days you’ll be working out why something intermittent happens on a machine, in a queue, or in a payload - and the answer is rarely the first plausible explanation. The other half of the job is people: operators, prepress and Customer Service use these systems every day, and you’ll teach them what the settings in front of them actually do, back up our Prepress Technician when something needs more than configuration, and take the problems that keep coming back and fix them for good.

Responsibilities

You’ll report to the Workflow Automation Engineer (Prepress) in Quality & Engineering, working daily with the prepress, manufacturing, quality and Customer Service teams. You’ll:

• Configure and support the press front ends across our estate - HP Indigo, Konica Minolta, Fiery, Caldera, ONYX and more - including press-side media setup
• Implement and hold our color standards on the machines: calibration, ICC profiles, media fingerprints
• Own job submission and machine data - JDF/JMF job tickets, status callbacks, and working out why a press and its data disagree
• Design and maintain the hot folder architecture across our output paths
• Train and support the people using these systems, and write the SOPs so anyone can run them
• Back up our Prepress Technician when a workflow needs more than configuration
• Bring new presses and equipment into production, running the physical testing behind EVT, DVT and PVT
• Work hands-on across the wider production floor: wide format printing and cutting, screen printing, laser etching, hot foil stamping, merchandise customization, and finishing equipment - folding, embellishment, round cornering, rotary die cutting and more
• Find and fix the recurring problems nobody owns, making them measurable instead of anecdotal

About You

To be considered for the role, you’ll need to show you have:

• PDF knowledge at the file level, not just the page level: boxes, color spaces, layers, spot colors, separations, and what actually changes when a file is preflighted or imposed - and how a press sheet is built from it
• DFE and RIP literacy: what a front end actually does to a job between submission and the press, and how its settings interact with color management - this is the core of the role
• Hands-on color management experience: you’ve calibrated presses, built or installed ICC profiles, and used measurement to hold color to a standard - and you know how a setting on the front end changes what lands on paper
• Prepress fundamentals: preflight, imposition, and the relationship between artwork, sheet layout and finishing
• Hands-on comfort with machines: running a structured physical test on a press or finishing unit and recording what actually happened rather than what was expected
• Methodical debugging of intermittent problems, and the discipline to confirm a cause rather than accept a plausible one
• The ability to teach, and to work with people who are not technical and take them seriously - training an operator on an interface is part of this job, not an interruption to it

Nice to Haves

• G7 certification, or hands-on experience running G7 calibrations. If you’ve held a press to a G7 standard, tell us - it’s the fastest way to stand out for this role
• Direct experience configuring a digital press DFE or RIP: HP, Konica Minolta, Fiery, Caldera, ONYX or similar
• Time on equipment beyond digital presses: wide format print and cut, screen printing, laser etching, hot foil, merchandise customization, or bindery and finishing kit
• JDF or JMF exposure
• Enfocus Switch, PitStop, or comparable workflow automation