Senior Project Engineer

Climate People; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Climate People is seeking a hands-on Project Engineer to lead owner-side execution of pilot and demonstration projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will coordinate internal teams with EPC/EPCM partners, equipment vendors, fabricators, and installation contractors to translate evolving process design into executable scope.

The role requires 5+ years delivering technically complex projects, experience with owner-side engineering, and strong cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in chemical, mechanical, or related engineering discipline.
• 5+ years delivering industrial process, energy, or similar complex projects.
• Experience with EPC/EPCM firms or major equipment integrators.
• Owner-side or owner’s engineer experience in evolving tech projects.
• Ability to turn internal requirements into external scopes and criteria.
• Strong written and verbal communication across internal and external teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead owner-side execution of pilot and demonstration projects from definition to early operation.
• Define contracting and delivery strategies with internal and external partners.
• Convert design requirements into execution-ready scopes and criteria.
• Serve as day-to-day interface with engineering and delivery partners.
• Coordinate reviews across process development, electrochemistry, mechanical, and controls.
• Support procurement: RFQs, bid evaluation, vendor selection, submittals, testing.
• Coordinate fabrication, installation, and site interfaces; drive issue resolution.

Skills

Project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Strong communication

Field engineering

Team coordination

Education

Bachelor's degree in chemical or mechanical engineering

Tools

PFDs & P&IDs

Job description

We're partnering with a well-funded direct air capture (DAC) and flow battery startup developing an electrochemical approach to pulling CO₂ from the atmosphere. They're building the engineering team that will take this technology from bench scale toward a first pilot and beyond.

This role is for a hands-on Project Engineer who will lead the owner-side integration and execution of our pilot and demonstration plants, working from early project definition through engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation, commissioning, and handover.

You will be the nexus between the internal technical team and the external support needed to deliver these projects, including engineering consultants/EPC's, equipment vendors, fabricators, system integrators, contractors, and permitting specialists.

The right candidate will be comfortable taking constantly evolving process knowledge and internal requirements into clear scopes, design criteria, decisions, and deliverables that outside partners can execute. A key part of the job is to move fast and manage the changing technical basis without over-engineering or compromising on safety.

This role requires both technical breadth and practical project judgment. You will not perform every discipline's work, but you must understand the process and project deliverables well enough to identify gaps, manage interfaces, challenge assumptions, drive decisions, and ensure that the finished system meets the objectives.

What you will own:

• Lead owner-side execution of pilot and demonstration projects from project definition and design basis through commissioning, turnover, and early operation.
• Help define the appropriate contracting and delivery strategy for each project, including the division of work among the internal team, EPC/EPCM partners, specialist engineering firms, equipment vendors, fabricators, and installation contractors.
• Convert our internal process design, requirements, experimental findings, and scale-up objectives into execution ready scope. E.g. design criteria, scopes of work, equipment and utility requirements, control and automation requirements, interface definitions, and acceptance criteria.
• Serve as primary day-to-day interface with external engineering and project-delivery partners, ensuring that questions are answered, decisions are made, and work remains aligned with project objectives.
• Coordinate internal input and design reviews across process development, electrochemistry, mechanical engineering, controls, operations, EHS, facilities, and company leadership.
• Support procurement activities, including preparation of RFQs, technical bid evaluation, vendor selection, review of vendor drawings and submittals, expediting, inspection, and factory and site acceptance testing.
• Coordinate fabrication, construction, installation, and site interfaces; identify emerging issues early and drive them to resolution.

What we’re looking for:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in chemical, mechanical, or a related engineering discipline.
• 5+ years of experience delivering industrial process, energy, chemical, water, manufacturing, or other technically complex projects.
• Comfort operating where the process design is still moving. Our TRL is early; the job is to design in a way that can absorb the change instead of fighting it.
• Experience working for or with an EPC/EPCM firm, multidisciplinary engineering contractor, or major equipment integrator.
• Owner-side or owner's-engineer experience, ideally in a start-up, scale-up, first-of-a-kind technology company, or another environment where the technical basis evolves during project development.
• Ability to review, integrate, and occasionally generate multidisciplinary engineering work, including PFDs and P&IDs, equipment specifications, layouts, utility requirements, electrical and controls concepts, project schedules, cost estimates, and vendor packages.
• Practical field judgment and a willingness to move between high-level planning and hands-on resolution of detailed project issues.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to turn incomplete or changing internal requirements into clear direction for external partners.
• A collaborative working style and the confidence to challenge assumptions, surface gaps, and drive timely decisions across internal and external teams.
• Willingness to be on-site in the San Francisco Bay Area, and to travel to vendor and fabrication shops.

Strongly preferred:

• Modular process skids, packaged equipment, automation and control-system integration, or facilities supporting research and development.
• Electrochemical, electrolysis, or high-DC-load process experience: rectifiers, stack integration, power quality, DC distribution.
• Familiarity with California permitting and PG&E interconnection.
• P.E. license, or a PMP.

What we’re not looking for:

• Someone who likes to work mainly on paper with deep and thorough analysis on long projects.
• A project manager who runs the schedule and routes documents but can't engage on the engineering.