VP, Engineering

Still Bright•Kenilworth, NJ

2d•$279,000 - $279,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Still Bright is bringing the first viable hydrometallurgical alternative to copper smelting to market at a moment when global copper demand is outpacing supply by historic margins. Our proprietary RACER (Rapid and Complete Electrochemical Reduction) process delivers fast, complete copper extraction while recovering precious and critical co-products, and as a closed-loop system it offers precise control over outputs and radically reduces environmental impact. Backed by top-tier investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Material Impact, the team is moving from pilot execution into the next stages of commercial deployment. The Vice President of Engineering is accountable for building out RACER’s demonstration and commercial facilities: leading the engineering execution and physical build of the RACER process from the current pilot through the demonstration phase and into the first commercial modules, working alongside the Chief Technology Officer, who retains authority over the core technology, intellectual property, and scientific roadmap. This role owns the engineering that brings RACER to commercial scale—reactor and process design, mass and heat balance optimization, equipment selection and procurement, construction and commissioning, and the technical commitments embedded in commercial agreements—and is responsible for delivering on scope, schedule, and budget. The Vice President of Engineering leads and manages the hydrometallurgy and electrochemistry departments. This role represents Still Bright externally to mining counterparties at the senior technical level. The Vice President of Engineering is the named technical principal for recurring engagement with the process engineering, plant operations, and ore characterization teams at copper majors, mid-majors, and offtakers across the active partnership pipeline, and partners with the VP of Commercialization to provide technical credibility and pre-sales engineering support without becoming a deal-making principal. Internally, the role builds, hires, and develops the engineering organization across the hydrometallurgy and electrochemistry departments, and owns technical and execution risk identification across the scale-up program.

Requirements

Master’s or Doctorate in chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field; or equivalent senior experience.
Minimum of 15 years of experience, including 5+ years at the Director or VP level, in process engineering, hydrometallurgy, capital project execution, or related disciplines within copper, gold, or base metals.
Demonstrated track record of process scale-up from bench through pilot to commercial in a hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical context.
Proven accountability for delivering capital projects through engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPC) on scope, schedule, and budget.
Experience building and leading multidisciplinary engineering organizations spanning process, mechanical, electrical, and controls engineering.
Strong reputation among mining technical executives, including credible peer-level conversations at the VP or C-suite level with copper majors.
Direct experience in commercial agreement negotiation where process technology was a load-bearing commitment.
Comfort representing a process technology externally with credibility and authority.

Nice To Haves

Prior senior leadership at a top-10 copper producer (Freeport-McMoRan, Rio Tinto, BHP, Glencore, Antofagasta, Anglo American, Codelco, Southern Copper, First Quantum, or similar), at a senior hydrometallurgical or engineering consultancy (Hatch, Wood, Ausenco, FLSmidth), or at a mining-technology company that has gone through commercial scale-up.
Direct experience with vanadium electrochemistry, electrochemical reactor design, sulfide leaching chemistry, or closed-loop hydrometallurgical processes.
Experience leading EPC contractors and owning project controls (cost, schedule, and risk) on first-of-a-kind or first-commercial facilities.
Experience with complex feedstocks: arsenic-bearing ores (enargite), mixed sulfide-oxide bodies, refractory copper oxides (chrysocolla), and tailings reprocessing.
An active network among copper-major technical executives.
Spanish-language proficiency (Chile target market).
Experience presenting technical work to Boards of Directors, investor diligence, or scientific advisory bodies.
Prior experience commissioning demonstration or first commercial units.
Process safety management (PSM) experience in chemical or hydrometallurgical facilities.

Responsibilities

Own the build of RACER’s demonstration and commercial facilities from pilot through demonstration and into the first commercial modules—directing engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPC) and delivering on scope, schedule, and budget.
Lead and manage the hydrometallurgical and electrochemical engineering departments, setting technical standards, organizational structure, and headcount as the engineering organization scales, and mentoring senior engineers and managers.
Lead the engineering function across all disciplines (process, mechanical, electrical, and controls) from pilot through commercial scale, including reactor design, process integration, mass and heat balance optimization, and equipment selection at each stage of scale-up.
Lead the technical design, construction, and commissioning of on-site demonstration units and the first commercial modules, managing EPC contractors and project controls (cost, schedule, and risk), partnering with the VP of Operations on commissioning and with the modeling team on the economic implications of design choices.
Serve as the senior technical principal in mining partner engagement—attending recurring meetings with partner process engineering and operations leadership, presenting technical results, defending performance assumptions, and negotiating the technical scope of commercial agreements.
Own site-specific feedstock testing programs, including ore characterization, recovery curve development, deleterious-element handling, and the translation of partner-specific ore variability into commercially defensible performance guarantees.
Partner with the VP of Commercialization on every active partnership conversation, providing technical credibility and pre-sales engineering support.
Coordinate closely with the Director of R&D (who reports to the Chief Technology Officer) to translate validated science into engineering execution, ensuring a clean handoff from the research pipeline into design and build.
Own technical and execution risk identification across the scale-up program and define go/no-go criteria tied to feedstock suitability, engineering readiness, and scale-up readiness.
Establish and maintain engineering and process-safety standards across the demonstration and commercial facilities.
Contribute to building Still Bright’s external reputation in the mining and metallurgy community through targeted conference presence (SME, CIM, ALTA, the Copper conferences), technical publication, and industry relationships.
Travel will be required for counterparty meetings, demonstration site visits, and industry engagement.