Process Development Engineer

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Job Description

Albemarle is hiring for a Process Development Engineer. This position is in-office and located at our Kings Mountain R&T site.

Join the Kings Mountain site Process Development team to accelerate Albemarle’s growth plans for new Lithium materials, resources and processes through, and advance Bromine specialty chemicals by executing rapid development and scaleup of new/improved process technologies, using flexible resources & facilities, both internally and externally.

The team links research and commercialization, developing the manufacturing processes at an intermediate scale to enable commercialization of new materials, new resources and major process improvements.  The group’s portfolio comes from significant interaction with multiple stakeholders, including strategic business planning, R&D, hydrogeology, process technology, quality, manufacturing and capital project engineering.

What You Will Do

The Kings Mountain site Process Development team requires an Engineer to execute our process development, scale-up and commercialization activities. The group’s portfolio is dynamic and complex, adjusting to priorities and schedule urgency, and requires the ability to identify and answer the critical questions that will drive decisions and generate reliable process information for commercial designs. Process Development Engineers are responsible for defining and executing the technical work required to progress projects through the Albemarle stage-gate process. They provide technical leadership on the process technology aspects of projects and own the technical work to successfully develop and scale-up new product and manufacturing process technologies. They work within cross-functional teams and collaborate with peers in upstream Research & Development and downstream Process Technology & Manufacturing functions.

Individual candidate experience and career development path will factor into specifics for roles, responsibilities and salary levels.  Technical activities could require working with unit operations such as: continuous/batch reactors, membrane separations, high temperature kilns, specialized filtration, crystallizers, centrifuges, dryers, ion exchange, powder synthesis and handling, fluidized bed reactors, inorganic and organic reactions, morphology control, inert atmospheric handling, electro-chemistry, etc.

Possible Role Specializations

• Technical project execution and leadership with mixed internal/external, cross-functional teams.

• Pyro and hydro metallurgical and chemical pilot plant design, scaleup and operation.

• Membrane process experience, e.g. RO, FO & electrolysis.

• Packed bed separation/purification unit operation experience, e.g. absorption, adsorption & ion exchange.

• High temperature, high purity solid material processing and handling operations

• Fluidized bed reactor design and scale-up.

• Solids crystallization and solids separation process technology design and scale-up.

• Process and economic evaluation for multiple options based on conceptual packages.

What You Bring

Required:

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical or Metallurgical Engineering, Chemistry or other applicable technical discipline. 

• Experience with process research & development, scaleup & tech transfer, chemical pilot plant design & operation, technical leadership and utilizing external technology providers. A minimum of 3-years of technical experience in either an industrial or laboratory-based setting developing these skills is desired.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with strong internal customer focus, including the creation of technical presentations and updates, technical reports and technology transfer packages.

• Excellent data analysis, visualization and presentation skills and experience in statistical methods, such as Design of Experiments (DoE), Statistical Process Control & Six Sigma.

• Experience in successfully executing process research, development and scale-up activities in a cross-functional matrix setting.

Preferred:

• Advanced degrees are encouraged.

• Exceptional safety leadership and experience with process safety management, putting Safety and Care for employees first.

• Results-driven, outcome-focused, action-oriented approach with a collaborative operating style that fosters high expectations and motivated teamwork.

• Strong data-based decision making, mental model thinking, problem solving, prioritization, and risk mitigation skills.

• Strategic agility and ability to create or adjust to alternate plans to achieve targets in a dynamic environment.

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Benefits of Joining Albemarle

• Competitive compensation

• Comprehensive benefits package

• A diverse array of resources to support you professionally and personally.

We are partners to one another in pioneering new ways to be better for ourselves, our teams, and our communities. When you join Albemarle, you become our most essential element and you can anticipate competitive compensation, a comprehensive benefits package, and resources that foster your well-being and fuel your personal growth. Help us shape the future, build with purpose and grow together.