How to Apply to Harley-Davidson

About Harley-Davidson

Harley-Davidson Motor Company is the iconic American motorcycle manufacturer, headquartered at 3700 West Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded in 1903 by William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson in a small wooden shed, the company has grown into one of the most recognizable brands in the world — a cultural institution as much as a manufacturer. Today Harley-Davidson employs roughly 5,500 people across its corporate headquarters, its engine and powertrain plant in Milwaukee, its vehicle assembly operations in York, Pennsylvania, a Kansas City, Missouri plant that has been scheduled for closure as part of restructuring, and international manufacturing in Rayong, Thailand. Harley-Davidson trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HOG — a direct reference to the company's long-running Harley Owners Group membership community. The company is led by Chairman, President, and CEO Jochen Zeitz, the former Puma executive who took over in 2020 and authored the Hardwire strategic plan. Hardwire pivoted Harley-Davidson away from chasing volume growth in entry-level segments and refocused the business on its profitable heavyweight touring, cruiser, and Trike franchises, while investing in the Adventure Touring category through the Pan America platform. Alongside the core combustion motorcycle business, Harley-Davidson spun its LiveWire electric motorcycle subsidiary into a separately publicly-traded company (NYSE: LVWR) via a SPAC merger in 2022. LiveWire has struggled commercially since the spin, posting heavy operating losses and revising delivery expectations, but remains strategically important as Harley-Davidson's hedge on the eventual electrification of two-wheel transportation. Harley-Davidson's hiring footprint spans four broad areas: unionized manufacturing and skilled-trades roles in Milwaukee and York represented by the United Steelworkers (USW); engineering and product development roles covering powertrain, chassis, electrical, software, industrial design, and advanced engineering; corporate functions at the Juneau Avenue campus covering marketing, finance, HR, IT, supply chain, legal, dealer network operations, and the financial services business (Harley-Davidson Financial Services); and commercial roles supporting the independent dealer network, aftermarket parts, accessories, and apparel (General Merchandise). The company also runs a structured internship and new-graduate program that has historically been a meaningful talent pipeline into engineering and corporate rotational roles. Candidates should understand that Harley-Davidson is navigating a genuinely contested moment in its history. Activist investor H Partners Management, a long-time shareholder, has publicly criticized the Hardwire execution, the board composition, and the pace of the leadership succession plan, and has run a campaign to withhold votes from directors including Zeitz. Independent of the activist campaign, the company has had to manage dealer frustration over wholesale shipment discipline, inventory alignment, and the economics of carrying floor-plan financing in a high-interest-rate environment. In 2024 Harley-Davidson became a focal point of a broader public campaign by conservative activists against corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and the company moved to dial back or restructure several DEI initiatives, then partially reversed course under employee and community pressure. Tariffs on motorcycles exported to the European Union, and the broader US-China and US-Europe trade posture, have been a recurring overhang on margins for years. None of this is disqualifying for a career at Harley-Davidson — great companies are often hiring precisely when they are being pushed — but it is real context that thoughtful candidates should be able to discuss in an interview.

Application Process

1
Start at the official careers portal at careers
Start at the official careers portal at careers.harley-davidson.com. All open roles, including manufacturing, engineering, corporate, and LiveWire positions posted on the Harley-Davidson side, are routed through this site. Avoid third-party aggregators as a primary source because they frequently carry stale listings and can expose you to recruiter scams that impersonate the Harley-Davidson brand.
2
Create an account in the SuccessFactors candidate portal
Create an account in the SuccessFactors candidate portal. The site is hosted on the SAP SuccessFactors BizX platform at career5.successfactors.eu with company identifier harleydavidson. Your profile, saved searches, and application history persist across roles, so invest real time in the profile on your first application — you will reuse it.
3
Search by job family, location, or requisition number
Search by job family, location, or requisition number. For manufacturing roles, filter to York, PA and Milwaukee, WI. For engineering, expect a mix of Milwaukee (Pilgrim Road Powertrain Operations) and Wauwatosa campus postings. For corporate, most roles are tagged Juneau Avenue or listed as hybrid.
4
Tailor your resume to the specific requisition
Tailor your resume to the specific requisition. SuccessFactors parses uploaded resumes into structured fields (work history, education, skills, certifications) and recruiters filter on those fields, not on the visual layout. A resume that looks beautiful but parses poorly will be invisible to the first screen.
5
Complete the application questionnaire honestly
Complete the application questionnaire honestly. Manufacturing applications include shift availability, lifting capacity, safety-sensitive acknowledgments, and in some cases US work authorization attestations tied to ITAR or export-controlled programs. Engineering applications include technical skill self-ratings and often require answers to specific domain questions.
6
Expect an acknowledgment email from the SuccessFactors system within minutes and
Expect an acknowledgment email from the SuccessFactors system within minutes and a recruiter-facing review window of one to three weeks for most corporate roles. Manufacturing roles, especially during ramp-up or seasonal hiring, often move faster — sometimes within days to a phone screen.
7
If you are a referred candidate, use the referral link or referral code your int
If you are a referred candidate, use the referral link or referral code your internal contact provides. Referrals are logged in SuccessFactors and carry meaningful weight, especially for corporate and engineering roles where competition is high.
8
For skilled trades and union-represented manufacturing roles, be prepared for a
For skilled trades and union-represented manufacturing roles, be prepared for a structured assessment process that may include mechanical aptitude testing, a hands-on skills demonstration, and a background check. Drug screening is standard for safety-sensitive positions.
9
Keep your candidate profile updated even after rejection
Keep your candidate profile updated even after rejection. Harley-Davidson recruiters frequently re-approach strong candidates for different requisitions, and an out-of-date profile reduces the chance of being found in a later sourcing pass.
10
If a recruiter contacts you through a channel that is not an hd
If a recruiter contacts you through a channel that is not an hd.com email address, an official SuccessFactors notification, or a verified LinkedIn profile linked to Harley-Davidson, treat it as suspicious. The company has been a target of recruitment impersonation scams, and they never ask candidates to pay for equipment, training, or onboarding.

Resume Tips for Harley-Davidson

recommended

Lead with a concise summary that names the function you are targeting and ties i

Lead with a concise summary that names the function you are targeting and ties it to a measurable outcome. Harley-Davidson recruiters read fast — one strong line at the top beats a long paragraph of generalities.

recommended

Quantify everything you can

Quantify everything you can. For manufacturing, that means units produced per shift, defect rates, OEE improvements, safety record, and changeover times. For engineering, that means program milestones, cost-downs, weight-outs, horsepower gains, validation cycles completed, and patents or disclosures. For corporate, that means revenue, margin, budget owned, team size, and specific campaign or launch results.

recommended

Use the exact terminology from the job description

Use the exact terminology from the job description. SuccessFactors parses skills into structured fields and recruiters search against those fields. If the requisition says PLM, write PLM. If it says Teamcenter, write Teamcenter. If it says Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, write the full phrase.

recommended

For engineering roles, list specific tools and standards: CATIA V5 or NX, Creo,

For engineering roles, list specific tools and standards: CATIA V5 or NX, Creo, ANSYS, MATLAB, Simulink, CAN, J1939, ISO 26262 (if relevant via LiveWire or electrified work), DFMEA, PFMEA, GD&T, PPAP, APQP, and ASTM or SAE standards relevant to powertrain or chassis.

recommended

For manufacturing leadership, call out Toyota Production System or Harley-Davids

For manufacturing leadership, call out Toyota Production System or Harley-Davidson Operating System equivalents — Lean, Kaizen, 5S, SMED, Andon, standard work, and TPM. Demonstrated ability to lead kaizen events and sustain gains matters more than abstract methodology knowledge.

recommended

Use a clean, ATS-friendly format

Use a clean, ATS-friendly format. Single column, standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications), a sans-serif body font, no text boxes, no headers or footers with critical information, and no graphics or icons that can confuse the parser.

recommended

Name your file professionally: Lastname_Firstname_Resume_YYYY

Name your file professionally: Lastname_Firstname_Resume_YYYY.pdf. Keep it to one page for fewer than ten years of experience and two pages beyond that. Three pages is acceptable only for senior engineering or executive candidates with a publication or patent list.

recommended

Include your motorcycle endorsement status only if it is relevant to the role —

Include your motorcycle endorsement status only if it is relevant to the role — for example, test rider, product manager, or ride-and-drive lead. Do not pad the resume with brand affinity; Harley-Davidson knows the difference between a resume and a fan letter.

recommended

If you have union-represented experience, say so, but frame it professionally —

If you have union-represented experience, say so, but frame it professionally — focus on the scope of the role, the collective bargaining environment, and the operational outcomes you drove, not on union politics.

recommended

Proofread

Proofread. Harley-Davidson is a brand company — typos, inconsistent capitalization, and sloppy formatting in an application to a brand company read as a signal of low attention to detail.

ATS System: SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Harley-Davidson uses SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting as its applicant tracking system, hosted on the SuccessFactors BizX platform at career5.successfactors.eu with the tenant identifier harleydavidson. SuccessFactors is one of the two dominant enterprise ATS platforms globally (alongside Workday) and is particularly common at large industrial employers. It parses uploaded resumes into structured candidate profiles, supports custom application questionnaires, runs competency assessments, and integrates with SAP's broader HR Information System. For candidates, this means that the parsed profile — not the visual resume — is what recruiters initially search, filter, and score.

Upload a plain, single-column PDF or Word document. SuccessFactors parses both reliably, but a clean Word .docx often parses marginally better into the skills and work-history fields.
After the system parses your resume, review every field manually before submitting. SuccessFactors frequently mis-parses dates, job titles, and employer names, and it is the parsed data — not your resume — that recruiters see first in the candidate pipeline.
Fill in the skills section explicitly with keyword-matched terms from the job description. Do not rely on the parser to extract skills from paragraphs; add them directly.
Complete the optional diversity, veteran, and disability self-identification questions if you are comfortable — they are stored separately from the candidate record used for hiring decisions and do not appear to the hiring manager.
Save the job in SuccessFactors before applying. Saved jobs show up in your candidate dashboard and often trigger reminder emails when the requisition status changes.
If you are applying from outside the United States, confirm work authorization status clearly in the application questionnaire. Harley-Davidson's US manufacturing and some engineering roles have ITAR or export-control implications that narrow eligibility to US persons.

Interview Culture

Harley-Davidson interviews are methodical, multi-round, and heavily weighted toward behavioral assessment and cultural fit.

Expect an initial recruiter phone screen of 20 to 30 minutes focused on your background, motivation for applying, compensation expectations, and basic qualifications. A strong screen is followed by a hiring-manager interview, typically 45 to 60 minutes, that probes both technical competence and the why-Harley-Davidson question in real depth. Candidates who treat that question as a throwaway consistently underperform against candidates who can articulate a specific, honest, non-fan-club answer about why they want to work on this brand, this product, and this business at this particular moment. For engineering roles, expect at least one technical panel of two to four engineers. Powertrain and chassis panels commonly walk through a prior project in detail — the problem, your approach, trade-offs, failure modes you encountered, and what you would do differently. Expect questions on specific standards (SAE, ASTM, ISO 26262 where relevant), CAE/CAD workflow, DFMEA and PFMEA reasoning, PPAP and APQP fluency for roles touching production launch, and real-world validation experience. For software and electrical roles, expect embedded systems questions, CAN bus familiarity, and — particularly for LiveWire-adjacent work — battery management, motor control, and functional safety. For manufacturing roles, the interview is typically a panel of operations leaders and sometimes union stewards or experienced technicians. Expect situational questions about safety (stopping the line, lockout-tagout discipline, addressing an unsafe condition), quality (catching a defect, escalating a process drift), and people (handling a conflict on the line, coaching a struggling team member). For salaried manufacturing leadership, expect additional questions on lean methodology, standard work, SMED, problem-solving at gemba, and running a tiered accountability process. For corporate roles, interviews are usually a mix of the hiring manager, peers, a cross-functional stakeholder, and a skip-level leader. Marketing interviews often include a brand-strategy discussion where candidates are expected to have a real, defensible point of view on the Harley-Davidson brand, its evolution, and its challenges. Finance, supply chain, and IT interviews tend to be more conventional technical and behavioral interviews, often with a written case study or analytical exercise. Across all functions, Harley-Davidson interviewers explicitly assess cultural alignment with the brand. This does not require being a rider or a current owner, and candidates should not fake that. It does require genuine curiosity about the product, a serious read on the company's strategic situation, and the ability to discuss both the strengths (iconic brand, profitable core, engaged rider community, strong touring franchise, global manufacturing footprint) and the honest challenges (aging core demographic, EV transition economics, dealer network tensions, activist pressure on the board, tariff exposure, LiveWire's commercial struggles) without flinching. The candidates who advance are the ones who engage with the company as it actually is, not as a nostalgic idea of it.

What Harley-Davidson Looks For

Demonstrated operational execution — can you actually ship product, hit takt time, land a launch, or close a quarter, as opposed to talking about it.
Authentic engagement with the Harley-Davidson brand and product, distinct from fandom. A candidate who has never owned a motorcycle but can articulate the business clearly will out-compete a candidate who leans on brand affinity without substance.
Safety discipline, especially for manufacturing and engineering candidates working on safety-critical systems. Harley-Davidson treats safety as a non-negotiable, and interviewers will test for it.
Quality mindset — the ability to reason about failure modes, root cause, 5-why, and permanent corrective action rather than short-term patches.
Financial literacy appropriate to the role. For corporate and engineering leaders, that includes understanding dealer economics, the wholesale-to-retail shipment dynamic, working-capital discipline, and gross-margin levers.
Ability to operate in a company undergoing transformation. Hardwire is a real strategic shift, LiveWire is a real standalone entity, and activist pressure is a real governance environment — candidates who treat all of this as noise do not advance.
Collaboration across a unionized, multi-site, and increasingly global footprint. Respectful, clear-eyed working relationships with USW-represented colleagues in Milwaukee and York are essential for manufacturing and engineering roles.
For LiveWire-adjacent and electrification roles, comfort with rapid iteration, ambiguity, and the economics of a young EV OEM operating at a loss while the market matures.
Credibility with the independent dealer network for any role that touches dealer operations, sales, service, or aftermarket. Dealers are sophisticated, opinionated partners and a misread here is costly.
Intellectual honesty. Harley-Davidson is not a company where bluffing your way through a technical or strategic question works. Interviewers probe, and they notice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Harley-Davidson use?

Harley-Davidson uses SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. The public careers site at careers.harley-davidson.com redirects to the SuccessFactors BizX platform hosted at career5.successfactors.eu with the tenant identifier harleydavidson. Your candidate profile persists across applications, so invest time setting it up correctly the first time.

Do I need to own or ride a Harley to get hired?

No. Many Harley-Davidson employees do not own a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and the company does not use ownership as a screening criterion. What interviewers do expect is genuine engagement with the product, the brand, and the business. Candidates who fake fandom underperform candidates who are honest about their relationship to the brand and bring substantive professional capability.

How long does the hiring process take?

For corporate and engineering roles, expect roughly four to eight weeks from application to offer, with a recruiter screen in the first one to three weeks, one or two hiring-manager rounds, a panel or onsite, and reference checks. Manufacturing and skilled-trades roles often move faster, sometimes within two to four weeks, particularly during ramp-up windows. Executive searches can run longer.

Is Harley-Davidson unionized?

Manufacturing and production workers in Milwaukee (powertrain and engine operations) and York, Pennsylvania (vehicle assembly) are represented by the United Steelworkers (USW). Corporate, engineering, and most salaried roles are non-represented. If you are applying to a unionized role, expect the interview and onboarding process to reflect collective-bargaining structures, including classification, seniority, and shift-bidding conventions.

What is the situation at the Kansas City plant?

Harley-Davidson previously announced plans to close and consolidate Kansas City manufacturing as part of its restructuring. Candidates applying to roles in Missouri should verify current status during the recruiter screen, as the operational footprint has continued to evolve.

Does Harley-Davidson hire for LiveWire, or is that a separate company?

LiveWire is now a separately publicly-traded company (NYSE: LVWR) following its 2022 SPAC merger, and runs its own hiring process for LiveWire-branded roles. However, many engineering, manufacturing, and corporate services roles remain shared with or adjacent to Harley-Davidson Motor Company, and some positions posted at Harley-Davidson touch electrification work directly. Read the requisition carefully and confirm the employing entity during the recruiter screen if that matters to you.

What internships and new-grad programs does Harley-Davidson offer?

Harley-Davidson runs a structured internship program across engineering, corporate, and manufacturing functions, primarily at the Milwaukee campus with some York and Kansas City roles depending on the operational footprint. Internship postings typically open in the fall for the following summer. The company also hires directly into engineering rotational and early-career corporate roles. All internship and new-grad opportunities are posted in the same SuccessFactors system as experienced-hire requisitions.

How should I handle the activist investor and DEI questions if they come up?

Do not raise either topic unprompted, but be prepared to discuss both with composure if an interviewer does. On the activist investor campaign, a credible answer acknowledges that public governance pressure is part of operating a listed company and focuses on the work you would do regardless of which board members serve. On DEI, be honest about your own approach to building effective teams across differences, avoid political framing in either direction, and let the hiring manager lead the conversation.

Does Harley-Davidson sponsor work visas?

Harley-Davidson selectively sponsors work visas for engineering, technology, and specialized corporate roles where the talent market requires it. Manufacturing, skilled-trades, and most general corporate roles are typically restricted to candidates with existing US work authorization, and some programs carry ITAR or export-control restrictions that limit hiring to US persons. Confirm sponsorship eligibility with the recruiter during the initial screen — do not assume.

What is the dress code and culture like at the Juneau Avenue campus?

The Juneau Avenue campus runs a business-casual culture with a pronounced brand overlay — branded apparel is common and expected on plant tours, launch events, and dealer visits. The culture rewards people who are curious about the product, respectful of the company's craft heritage, direct in communication, and willing to engage with the honest strategic challenges the business faces rather than repeat talking points.

How to Apply to Harley-Davidson

Key Takeaways

About Harley-Davidson

Application Process

Resume Tips for Harley-Davidson

Lead with a concise summary that names the function you are targeting and ties i

Quantify everything you can

Use the exact terminology from the job description

For engineering roles, list specific tools and standards: CATIA V5 or NX, Creo,

For manufacturing leadership, call out Toyota Production System or Harley-Davids

Use a clean, ATS-friendly format

Name your file professionally: Lastname_Firstname_Resume_YYYY

Include your motorcycle endorsement status only if it is relevant to the role —

If you have union-represented experience, say so, but frame it professionally —

Proofread

ATS System: SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Interview Culture

What Harley-Davidson Looks For

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Positions

Related Resources

Career Guides for Harley-Davidson Roles

Similar Companies

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Sources