Chemical Process Engineer

Personna Employment Solutions; Boardman (OR); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Personna Employment Solutions is seeking an experienced Process Engineer to support safe operation, troubleshooting, analysis, optimization, and continuous improvement in a large-scale fuel ethanol dry mill and liquid CO2 facility. The role blends hands-on process engineering with project execution, leading capital improvements from concept through start-up and commissioning.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in continuous-process manufacturing, strong knowledge of PFDs/P&IDs,

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Process Engineer to support the safe operation, troubleshooting, analysis, optimization, and continuous improvement of unit operations within a large-scale fuel ethanol dry mill and liquid CO₂ manufacturing facility.

This is a hands-on plant engineering role combining process engineering, operational troubleshooting, and capital project execution. The engineer will work closely with operations, maintenance, environmental, safety, contractors, vendors, and engineering firms to improve plant performance and lead projects from initial concept through design, procurement, construction, start-up, commissioning, and closeout.

The strongest candidates will come from continuous-process manufacturing environments such as ethanol, renewable fuels, biodiesel, industrial gases/liquid CO₂, chemical processing, bioprocessing, fermentation, distillation, refining, food or agricultural processing, or similarly complex process facilities.

Process Engineering Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day process engineering support for production, utilities, wastewater treatment, and environmental systems across the facility.
• Troubleshoot process and equipment performance issues and develop practical engineering solutions to improve safety, reliability, throughput, efficiency, yield, and operating cost.
• Develop, maintain, and update material and energy balances, process flow diagrams (PFDs), piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), equipment specifications, and process documentation.
• Perform process calculations and equipment sizing to support optimization, troubleshooting, debottlenecking, maintenance, and capital improvements.
• Support Management of Change (MOC), Process Safety Management (PSM), HAZOP studies, process hazard reviews, operating procedure updates, and regulatory compliance.
• Design and execute plant trials, investigations, data collection, testing, and process experiments in support of continuous improvement initiatives.
• Analyze operating data and process KPIs to identify performance gaps, root causes, bottlenecks, and optimization opportunities.
• Maintain engineering drawings, technical documentation, specifications, and controlled engineering records.
• Lead process and capital projects from concept development through engineering, procurement, construction, start-up, and commissioning.
• Develop project scope, technical requirements, risk assessments, mitigation strategies, schedules, and execution plans.
• Prepare and refine project cost estimates from preliminary feasibility through budgetary and Authorization-for-Expenditure stages.
• Evaluate value-engineering, process optimization, and non-capital alternatives before advancing capital solutions.
• Coordinate internal stakeholders, engineering consultants, OEMs, contractors, vendors, inspectors, and construction partners.
• Manage engineering design resources supporting complex processing-industry projects, including multidisciplinary engineering packages.
• Develop equipment specifications, bid packages, bidder lists, and technical procurement documentation.
• Support technical bid evaluations, vendor selection, contractor selection, and commercial negotiations in partnership with purchasing.
• Coordinate construction activities with plant operations and maintenance, particularly around scheduled outages, shutdowns, tie-ins, and production constraints.
• Monitor project safety, quality, scope, cost, schedule, contractor performance, and conformance to engineering specifications.
• Develop and track project KPIs and communicate project status, risks, cost projections, and schedule performance to stakeholders.
• Lead start-up, commissioning, operational readiness, training, procedure updates, preventive-maintenance handoff, and project closeout.

Ideal Background

• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering strongly preferred.
• Approximately 5–10 years of process engineering experience within a chemical or continuous-process manufacturing environment.
• Direct plant experience is strongly preferred over purely office-based engineering or product-design backgrounds.
• Demonstrated experience troubleshooting and optimizing unit operations and integrated plant processes.
• Strong working knowledge of PFDs, P&IDs, material balances, energy balances, process equipment, instrumentation, piping systems, utilities, and process controls.
• Experience with PSM, HAZOP, MOC, process safety, and regulated industrial operating environments.
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing capital projects within an operating manufacturing facility.
• Experience coordinating engineering firms, contractors, OEMs, vendors, operations, maintenance, and other technical stakeholders.
• Experience supporting major industrial capital programs or complex processing-industry projects is highly desirable.
• Comfortable spending significant time in an operating plant environment rather than working exclusively from a desk.

Highly Relevant Industry Experience

Candidates with backgrounds in the following environments should translate particularly well:

• Fuel ethanol / dry-mill ethanol
• Chemical manufacturing
• Bioprocessing
• Fermentation
• Distillation and separation processes
• Food and beverage processing
• Agricultural processing
• Refining / petrochemical processing
• Pulp and paper or other continuous-process manufacturing

Experience specifically involving fermentation, distillation, evaporation, separation, heat transfer, utilities, boilers, wastewater, compressed gases, pumps, piping, tanks, heat exchangers, process controls, or other fluid-processing systems is particularly valuable.

Core Technical Skills

Process Engineering | Process Optimization | Unit Operations | PFDs & P&IDs | Material & Energy Balances | Process Safety Management (PSM) | HAZOP | Management of Change (MOC) | Capital Projects | Equipment Sizing & Specification | Root Cause Analysis | Continuous Improvement | Process Troubleshooting | Project Engineering | Construction Support | Plant Start-Up & Commissioning

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Employment may be contingent upon successful completion of applicable background screening and drug testing requirements.