R&D Process Engineer

Arbor Energy•El Segundo, CA

13h•Hybrid

About The Position

At Arbor Energy & Resources Corporation ("Arbor Energy"), we’re creating technology to power our lives while protecting the planet that sustains them. Our advanced power systems deliver clean, reliable baseload electricity with zero operating emissions—modular, fuel-flexible, and engineered for the realities of today’s energy demand. At the core is a supercritical CO₂ turbine with integrated carbon capture, designed to bring carbon-neutral power online quickly at meaningful scale. Our team includes aerospace engineers, combustion experts, and systems thinkers with a shared goal: to build technology worthy of the world we want to live in. While many of us began our journeys looking to the stars, we’re applying that expertise here at home to deliver dependable, emission-free baseload power and a future of lasting abundance. If you share our values and are drawn to rigorous work with lasting impact, we’d love to learn more about you. Come build what the future will run on. Steward our planet: We build for tomorrow, ensuring every bolt we tighten and every hand we lend leaves our environment stronger than we found it. Lead with Love: We champion the success of our people, partners, and planet, nurturing excellence through camaraderie and rigor. Explore the Uncharted: We embrace the unknown with curiosity, using courage and discipline to transform uncertainty into opportunity. We're looking for an R&D Process Engineer to bring process engineering rigor to Arbor's fast-paced R&D programs—turning ambitious test plans into operating reality on first-of-a-kind hardware. Our current center of gravity is a high-pressure gasification program operating at conditions never before attempted at any scale, on an aggressive path to commercial operation. You'll own the process side of test stand design, problem-solve at the P&ID and control-scheme level to bring test plans to life, and lead troubleshooting on a challenging fouling-, plugging-, and erosion-prone service. You'll partner closely with senior systems team engineers, gasification engineers, and test engineers, and bring the same rigor to other R&D programs across Arbor as priorities evolve. This is hands-on, high-stakes engineering work on first-of-a-kind technology at the frontier of carbon-negative baseload power.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical, Chemical, Aerospace, or related Engineering field.
5+ years of hands-on process engineering experience, with meaningful time spent in an R&D, pilot plant, or test stand context.
Demonstrated experience troubleshooting fouling, plugging, erosion, instability, or off-design behavior on real hardware—able to walk through specific events, diagnostic approaches, and outcomes.
Comfort with commercial process simulation tools (Aspen HYSYS, Symmetry, or equivalent), including both steady-state and dynamic simulation.
Strong fundamentals in chemical engineering and a broad appreciation of adjacent disciplines (mechanical, instrumentation, controls, materials).
Willingness and ability to travel to Arbor's test site in San Bernardino, CA (approximately 20–40%, weighted toward active campaign windows).
Highly self-driven, with the ability to identify technical mysteries and pursue them to root cause when operating with loose guidance.
Strong ownership mentality and curious, inventive mindset comfortable driving rigorous problem-solving in a small, fast-paced startup environment.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience with gasification, oxy-combustion, slag-forming combustion, FCC, coker, hydrocracking, refractory-lined reactors, ash- or solids-handling, or other high-temperature, high-pressure, fouling-prone systems.
Hands-on operating experience in a pilot plant, test stand, hardware startup, national lab pilot program, or aerospace test cell environment.
Programming or scripting proficiency for data reduction and custom analysis (Excel, Python, MATLAB, or similar).
Experience with supercritical CO₂, high-pressure (100+ bar) systems, or power generation.
Familiarity with PHA/HAZOP leadership, LOPA, and pressure relief design.
Background in startup, R&D, or first-of-a-kind hardware development environments.

Responsibilities

Own the process engineering deliverables for R&D test stand design—design basis, process flow diagrams, heat and material balances, equipment and line sizing, and supporting calculations that take a new test rig from concept to ready-to-run.
Apply that rigor first to the gasification program's hardest subsystems—high-pressure oxygen and CO2 control, refractory-lined reactor zones, and syngas analysis, cooling and cleanup.
Develop and maintain steady-state and dynamic process models to predict performance, explore design space, and inform test planning across active R&D programs.
Translate test campaign objectives, set by gasification and test engineers, into P&IDs, control narratives, instrument specifications, and safe operating envelopes—bringing rigorous process design to ambitious experimental plans.
Reduce, analyze, and interpret test data—closing mass and energy balances, reconciling instrumentation, and turning campaign results into design decisions and next-test recommendations on the parts of the system you know best.
Lead root-cause investigations on fouling, plugging, erosion, instability, and other off-design behavior in a challenging high-temperature, high-pressure service; drive corrective actions through to verified resolution.
Develop operating procedures, run sheets, and startup/shutdown sequences, and participate in process hazard analyses (PHA/HAZOP) as the test program evolves.