Senior Fermentation Process Engineer

The Role:

Meati Foods is a fast-growing food company with fermentation at the core of our business. We are hiring senior process engineers to support our growth in fermentation capacity with process optimization, development, and troubleshooting at our production facilities as well as at our cutting-edge R&D pilot facility. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to be a subject matter expert for cross-functional projects requiring creative solutions to fulfill process optimization and development needs at all levels of our business.

Responsibilities:

• Process Engineering
  • Apply biological systems engineering principles to fermentation processes and equipment selection
  • Specify and design fermentation equipment, including vessels, instrumentation & controls and provides training to operators on new and existing processes and equipment.
  • Apply analytic methodology such as statistical process control (SPC) to optimize process conditions to improve yield, quality, and capacity.
  • Develops cost justifications, scope, schedule, and budget estimates for new process systems and process upgrades.
  • Contribute to fermentation startup and commissioning activities, including onsite field engineering at new production facilities, new system validation and checkout, and the development of standard operating procedures.
    
    
• Project Support
  • Prepares Best Value Option Analysis (BVOA) to compare solutions and cost for best value and provide recommendations to project teams.
  • Interfaces with Project Managers and/or contractors, vendors, and maintenance to ensure installation and completion of capital projects.
  • Reviews, marks up, and approves drawings and other technical documentation for process systems.
  • Develops Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) planning and executes successful FAT.
  • Provides field installation supervision, leads commissioning, and field troubleshooting during startup phase.
  • Identifies and resolves technical problems.
  • Communicates project status throughout the organization.
  • Develops and executes IQ, OQ, PQ with project team during installation, commissioning, qualification, and verification project phases.
  • Adds value by influencing through innovation and continuous improvement.
  • Identifies, develops, and implements process improvement projects to increase productivity, reliability, sustainability, and cost reduction.
  • Supports a High-Performance Organization (HPO) environment by utilizing a total team approach to process improvements.

Requirements:

• BS or MS in biochemical, chemical engineering, or equivalent
• 7-12 years’ experience in commercial fermentation. Ideal background in food, pharmaceutical or special chemicals.
• Experience in fermentation facility aseptic design.
• Understanding and experience with Clean-in-Place (CIP) systems design and operation.
• Knowledge and experience with Sterilize-in-Place (SIP) design and operation for aseptic systems.
• Construction oversight and commissioning experience.
• Experience with mass balance process flows and calculations, biological and engineering systems modeling, biological systems optimization, automation engineering, engineering research, and/or sustainability engineering is desired.
• Must be open to 20% - 25% travel.

Nice-to-Have (but not required):

• Understanding of PLC programming and process control fundamentals.
• Experience with AutoCAD or Visio
• Lean Six Sigma Certified (Green Belt)
• Statistical Process Control

Compensation: $90k-$120k