Principal Process Engineer - Water

VVater•Austin, TX

16d•Onsite

About The Position

The Principal Process Engineer is the technical owner of VVater’s water and wastewater treatment system designs. The role translates raw-water or wastewater characteristics, regulatory targets, and operating constraints into complete, buildable treatment systems. Design deliverables include process flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, mass balances, hydraulic calculations, equipment specifications, bills of materials, and process control narratives. This is an onsite position based in Austin, Texas; remote and hybrid work are not available. The role operates at a fast pace, with frequent design work, real customer deadlines, and commissioning schedules that may require field availability. The engineer will design across municipal drinking water and wastewater, reuse, industrial, onsite, modular, recreational, and residential applications, and will see systems through fabrication, testing, startup, and performance validation. The position combines process design and modeling with regulatory support, customer-facing technical work, and field commissioning. The engineer will assess treatment feasibility from first principles, quantify expected contaminant removal and its limitations, define acceptance criteria and sampling, and keep design-basis information aligned with digital-twin and CAD functions. Applicants must participate in required assessment tests for their application to progress.

Requirements

At least 7 years of hands-on water and/or wastewater treatment process engineering experience, with demonstrated breadth across multiple verticals such as drinking water, wastewater, reuse, and industrial applications.
Demonstrated ownership of full-system designs—including PFDs, P&IDs, mass balances, hydraulic calculations, equipment sizing, and BOMs—across multiple commissioned projects.
Deep working knowledge of conventional and advanced unit processes, including coagulation/flocculation, sedimentation, DAF, granular and membrane filtration (MF/UF/NF/RO), biological treatment (activated sludge, MBR, MBBR, IFAS), disinfection (UV, chlorine, ozone), advanced oxidation, ion exchange, and electrochemical processes.
Fluency with industry-standard process modeling and design software such as GPS-X, BioWin, WAVE, IMSDesign, ROSA, or EPANET.
AutoCAD proficiency and familiarity with P&ID and PFD drafting conventions, including ISA and ANSI.
Field commissioning experience, including onsite startup work.
Strong working knowledge of U.S. regulatory frameworks, including EPA SDWA, NPDES, NSF/ANSI standards, and state primacy requirements.
Hands-on fluency with modern AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or equivalents, and ability to develop internal engineering tools and automations using code.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to prepare process design narratives, technical proposals, and regulatory submittals clearly.
Comfort working with ambiguity and independently progressing designs without requiring a senior engineer to guide every step.
Strong first-principles command of mass balance, hydraulics, reaction kinetics, and unit-operation sizing.
Ability to participate in required recruitment assessment tests.
Availability for an onsite position in Austin, Texas; remote and hybrid work are not available.

Nice To Haves

Texas PE license; alternatively, willingness and ability to obtain Texas licensure.
Master’s degree in Environmental, Chemical, Civil, or Mechanical Engineering; a PhD is preferred.
Direct experience designing Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) or Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR) systems under Texas, California, or similar state frameworks.
Experience with electrochemical, electrocoagulation, or advanced oxidation processes.
Modular and containerized treatment system design experience.
Industrial water and wastewater experience in food and beverage, semiconductor, data center, oil and gas, or mining applications.
PFAS treatment design experience.
Familiarity with SCADA, PLC programming concepts, and instrumentation specification.
Texas primacy-agency requirements, particularly TCEQ.

Responsibilities

Design complete water and wastewater treatment systems from raw influent through finished water for drinking water, wastewater, reuse, industrial, onsite, modular, recreational, and residential applications.
Produce process flow diagrams (PFDs), piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), mass and energy balances, hydraulic profiles, and process control narratives.
Size and specify major and minor equipment, including pumps, blowers, tanks, vessels, electrochemical reactors, ADAF units, instrumentation, valves, and piping.
Develop bills of materials (BOMs) and work with procurement on vendor selection and equipment sourcing.
Perform process modeling and simulation as needed using tools such as GPS-X, BioWin, WAVE, IMSDesign, custom spreadsheets, and Python models.
Optimize designs for CapEx, OpEx, footprint, energy use, chemical use, and operability.
Design to applicable standards and regulations, including EPA SDWA, EPA NPDES, NSF/ANSI 60 and 61, state primacy agency requirements, and relevant drinking water and wastewater permits.
Support permitting documentation, regulatory submittals, and compliance demonstration testing.
Stay current on emerging regulations, including PFAS rules, Lead and Copper Rule revisions, and evolving state DPR/IPR frameworks.
Work with the factory-floor team to ensure designs are buildable and meet specifications; review fabrication, assembly, and factory acceptance testing (FAT).
Travel to commissioning sites and lead or support site acceptance testing (SAT), startup, and performance validation.
Capture field lessons learned and incorporate them into the design library.
Translate customer requirements into design specifications and lead technical discussions with municipal engineers, consulting firms, industrial process engineers, and end users.
Develop technical proposals, design narratives, and process write-ups; represent VVater in RFP responses, pilot studies, and design reviews.
Integrate treatment-module unit operations with conventional and advanced processes into coherent, sized, and buildable systems.
Develop treatability assessments from first principles, documenting expected contaminant-removal efficacy ranges, their basis, and limiting factors.
Assess feasibility from treatment principles and reserve bench or pilot work for novel chemistry or targets not digitally validated by principles and ranges.
Quantify performance across pathogens, trace organics and CECs, PFAS, nutrients, TOC, dissolved solids, and disinfection and transformation byproducts.
Define acceptance criteria, instrumentation, and sampling needed to demonstrate that a treatment train meets its targets.
Provide design-basis data to digital-twin and CAD functions and keep the design basis synchronized with the as-modeled system.
Complete required assessment tests as part of the recruitment process.