Sr Manager Process Engineer

Danone•Louisville, CO

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Sr Manager Process Engineer leads process design, scale-up, validation, and commercialization across dairy, plant-based, cultured, and adjacent food platforms. The role delivers safe, cost-effective, scalable consumer-preferred solutions and provides technical leadership across R&I, Operations, Quality & Food Safety, Engineering, Procurement, suppliers, and co-manufacturers.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Chemical, Process, Food, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
10+ years of progressive process-engineering, scale-up, or industrialization experience in food, beverage, CPG, or another regulated hygienic manufacturing environment.
Demonstrated success scaling processes from bench or pilot to manufacturing and establishing robust operating windows and validation plans.
Ability to mentor technical talent, lead cross-functional work across projects and sites, and communicate risks and recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Expert command of engineering fundamentals, scale-up principles, process dynamics, equipment capability, and hygienic manufacturing.
Strong knowledge of GMP, HACCP, sanitation, thermal validation, process risk, instrumentation, controls, and manufacturing data systems.
Advanced data analysis and statistical skills, with the ability to integrate formulation, rheology, processing, equipment, packaging, and shelf-life requirements.
Strong project leadership, prioritization, communication, and influencing skills, with comfort operating hands-on in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or PhD in engineering, food science, or a related technical discipline.
Advanced expertise in thermal or aseptic processing, fermentation, filtration, mixing, homogenization, hygienic design, and product-process interactions.
Lean Six Sigma or equivalent problem-solving expertise, plus experience with capital projects, suppliers, co-manufacturers, or global teams.

Responsibilities

Lead process strategy, design, scale-up, validation, and commercialization for complex innovation, renovation, productivity, quality, and capacity programs.
Apply deep expertise in mixing, thermal and aseptic processing, homogenization, fermentation, filtration, filling, sanitation, controls, and automation.
Define critical process parameters, operating windows, scale-up rules, control plans, and risk mitigations; lead resolution of high-impact manufacturing issues.
Lead multiple strategic technical programs and own R&I process-engineering deliverables through stage-gate, including scope, resources, risks, trials, documentation, and recommendations.
Design and execute pilot and plant trials, analyze results, and communicate decision-ready conclusions to technical, operational, and business leaders.
Build reusable standards, scale-up playbooks, and lessons learned to improve speed and first-time-right commercialization.
Apply engineering fundamentals, statistical methods, and plant data to optimize unit operations and distinguish process variation from systemic capability gaps.
Partner with manufacturing teams to establish sustainable operating standards, monitoring, and corrective actions.
Define process and user requirements for pilot equipment, including hygienic design, utilities, instrumentation, automation, data collection, and cleanability.
Work with OPS Engineering to ensure industrial equipment meets desired requirements.
Guide equipment selection and capital projects from concept through commissioning and start-up, ensuring product, process, food-safety, operability, and scale-up requirements are met.
Ensure process designs and commercialization plans meet GMP, HACCP, sanitary design, validation, regulatory, and internal food-safety requirements.
Partner with Quality & Food Safety to assess risk, resolve deviations, define validation evidence, and review key process and change-control documentation.
Mentor technical contributors, deliver training, and build organizational process-engineering capability without direct supervisory responsibility.
Serve as a senior subject-matter expert; influence cross-functional and global partners; and evaluate suppliers, co-manufacturers, emerging technologies, and digital tools.