VP of Engineering: Scale World-Scale Mineral Plants

Travertine; Boulder (CO); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health benefits

401k matching

Flexible time off

Job summary

Travertine, an Industrial Transformation company based in Boulder, CO, seeks a VP of Engineering to lead the engineering function as it moves from demonstration to commercial plant deployment. The role reports to the CEO and will build the engineering discipline and team responsible for world-scale critical mineral production plants.

The first plant is a purified phosphoric acid facility in the southeastern US (FEL-2).

Qualifications

• 20+ years of engineering experience in complex chemical, hydrometallurgical, industrial water, mining, critical minerals, cement/materials, or adjacent process industries.
• Proven track record translating R&D, pilot, and demo results into scalable engineering designs for commercial deployment.
• Deep applied process engineering foundation, including PFDs, P&IDs, mass and energy balances, equipment specification, process safety, and technoeconomic/capital planning.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary engineering programs from concept through detailed design, construction support, commissioning, and startup.
• Ability to lead internal teams and external partners, including EPCs, vendors, consultants, and contractors.
• Experience building engineering discipline in a startup, scale-up, or first-of-a-kind industrial technology environment.
• Strong cross-functional communicator with the judgment and maturity to align R&D, engineering, operations, executives, investors, and commercial stakeholders.
• Delivered projects on time and on budget.
• Experience with skid-based plant manufacturing for key unit operations and/or entire plants.
• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering or related field required.

Responsibilities

• Own Travertine’s plant engineering roadmap from demo plant to multiple commercial plant deployments.
• Build the systems, standards, and processes needed for a professional engineering organization.
• Use pilot and demonstration plant experimental data to inform scalable process designs.
• Work cross-functionally with Process Development, R&D, and Electrochemical Stack Engineering teams to translate technology development into engineering design and efficiently retire scale-up risk.
• Engineer for intrinsic safety
• Develop stage-gate engineering plans, including scope, schedule, budget, technical risks, and decision criteria.
• Determine when work should be executed internally versus through EPCs, vendors, consultants, or other external partners.
• Evaluate options for engineering, procurement, and construction including traditional stick-built EPC, off-site skid-built, and hybrid models.
• Lead development of process design packages, including PFDs, P&IDs, mass and energy balances, equipment specifications, control philosophies, and basis-of-design documents from concept through detailed engineering.
• Oversee process design work across chemical separations, hydrometallurgy, crystallization, ion exchange, solid-liquid separation, membrane-based systems, and/or related industrial processes.
• Guide design of demonstration plant upgrades to ensure systems generate representative data for future commercial design.
• Review technoeconomic analysis, capital/operating cost models, and project execution plans.
• Ensure all engineering decisions are made with scalable and repeatable plant economics in mind.
• Drive process safety and risk-management practices, including HAZOP, PHA, LOPA, PSM and related reviews.
• Collaborate with regulatory, environmental, and legal teams to secure necessary air, water, and site construction permits
• Support site selection, facility layout, equipment selection, procurement strategy, and constructability reviews.

Skills

Project management

Process engineering

Leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering

PE license

Job description

Travertine, an Industrial Transformation company based in Boulder, CO, seeks a VP of Engineering to lead the engineering function as it moves from demonstration to commercial plant deployment. The role reports to the CEO and will build the engineering discipline and team responsible for world-scale critical mineral production plants.

The first plant is a purified phosphoric acid facility in the southeastern US (FEL-2).