Position Summary
The Process & Project Management Engineer is responsible for improving process performance, leading capital projects, and supporting facility stabilization and modernization efforts. This role drives throughput improvements, waste reduction, food safety excellence, and operational discipline while helping implement a structured daily management system. The engineer will play a key role in building a culture grounded in reliability, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

Process Engineering & Continuous Improvement

• Analyze, optimize, and standardize manufacturing processes for cooked foods, sauces, and seasoning blends.

• Lead Lean initiatives including 5S, SMED, waste elimination, and process simplification to improve throughput and line reliability.

• Apply structured root-cause analysis to eliminate repeat failures and stabilize operations.

• Develop, maintain, and update SOPs, work instructions, and technical documentation.

• Support the adoption of a structured daily management system, including tiered accountability meetings, KPI boards, and process discipline.

• Use data (Excel, KPIs, and process trends) to drive fact-based decisions and continuous improvement.

Capital Project Management

• Lead capital projects up to $5MM total installed cost, including scope development, design, procurement, contractor oversight, installation, and commissioning.

• Partner with Finance to develop financial justifications, project budgets, cash flow forecasts, and ROI analyses.

• Track project spending, manage forecasts and variances, and ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget.

• Oversee equipment layouts, process flows, utilities, and integration of new technologies.

• Manage contractors, integrators, and engineering firms to ensure compliance with safety, quality, cost, schedule, and performance expectations.

Technical Expertise & Process Control

• Provide engineering support for batching, blending, thermal processing, packaging, and sanitation operations.

• Recommend and implement automation, controls, instrumentation, and process monitoring enhancements.

• Ensure compliance with FDA, USDA, FSMA, customer standards, sanitary design principles, and site food safety programs.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Capability Building

• Collaborate with Operations, Quality, R&D, Supply Chain, and Maintenance on trials, readiness, and capability development.

• Partner with Finance to identify cost-reduction opportunities, validate savings, and support financial justification for process improvements and capital investments.

• Provide data-driven insights on cost drivers, throughput, labor impacts, and operational efficiency.

• Lead or support commissioning of new equipment and technology transfers.

• Train operators and supervisors on new processes, equipment, standards, and documentation.

• Model ownership, reliability, and professional discipline within a facility undergoing significant improvement.

Leadership Expectations

• Act with an ownership mindset, creating value for the business and its stakeholders.

• Build strong partnerships through collaboration across all functional teams.

• Inspire others through positive leadership, accountability, and determination.

• Drive innovation by identifying and implementing solutions that improve performance.

• Demonstrate strong financial discipline, balancing technical requirements with cost and business priorities.

• Translate engineering decisions into clear financial and operational impacts.

• Highly organized with strong planning and prioritization skills.

• Comfortable working in a plant-floor environment.

• Strong communicator with the ability to partner across all levels of the organization.

• Maintain a continuous improvement mindset and strong professional discipline.

• Perform effectively in a fast-paced, change-driven, transformation-focused facility.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Chemical, Industrial, or a related engineering discipline.

• 5+ years of experience in food manufacturing 

• Strong project management capability and the maturity to operate in a fast-changing environment.

• Proven success applying Lean methodologies in a plant setting.

• Demonstrated experience leading capital projects up to $5MM.

• Hands-on problem-solving skills with strong cross-functional communication abilities.

• Knowledge of food safety, sanitation, regulatory compliance, and sanitary design principles.

• Strong Excel and data analysis skills, including use of KPIs to drive decisions.

• Experience developing technical documentation and process standards.

Preferred

• Experience with thermal processing, batching, blending, or RTE cooked systems.

• Experience with WMS, MES, or digital plant-performance tools.

• Background in high-change, fast-paced, or turnaround environments.

• Experience training frontline teams or supervisors.

• Six Sigma Green Belt or higher certification.

• Experience working within structured daily management systems such as DMS, SQCDP, MOS, or tier-based accountability meetings.

• Familiarity with structured operating systems or continuous improvement frameworks is a strong plus.