Staff Engineer - SME Dryers

Agropur is seeking a Staff Engineer - SME Dryers to serve as the enterprise technical authority for industrial drying technologies across its manufacturing network. The role provides technical leadership for drying system design, operation, optimization, troubleshooting, capital projects, food safety, powder hazard mitigation, energy efficiency, and emerging drying technologies.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the enterprise subject matter expert for drying systems, with primary focus on spray drying
• Provide technical leadership for spray dryers, fluid bed dryers/coolers, and associated powder handling and air handling systems
• Lead technical reviews of major capital projects involving drying technologies
• Serve as the final technical authority for drying-related engineering decisions
• Support strategic decisions regarding drying system design, technology selection, product capability, and system optimization
• Make high-quality technical decisions in ambiguous or high-risk situations (e.g., fouling, powder quality variation, thermal degradation, capacity limitations)
• Participate in concept development, feasibility studies, and engineering design reviews; review process designs and vendor proposals for drying systems
• Support Operational Excellence initiatives by addressing complex performance, product quality, reliability, and capacity challenges; identify optimization opportunities (e.g., yield improvement, energy efficiency, uptime, product consistency)
• Build and maintain enterprise drying system design and operating standards; ensure compliance in partnership with Engineering Governance and drive adoption across the network
• Establish and promote best practices for food safety and hygienic design, including prevention of contamination, cleanability (CIP), allergen control, and compliance with regulatory and internal quality standards
• Establish and maintain best practices related to powder hazards and risk mitigation, including dust explosion prevention, zoning/ATEX considerations, ignition source control, and safe powder handling systems
• Provide technical guidance on thermal efficiency, energy consumption, and sustainability considerations, including heat recovery, air system optimization, and evaluation of emerging low-energy drying technologies
• Establish best practices for powder quality control, including particle size distribution, bulk density, moisture, solubility, and thermal stability
• Monitor and evaluate emerging drying technologies and assess their potential to unlock new product platforms or improve cost, quality, safety, and sustainability performance

Requirements:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering (ChE preferred)
• 10+ years experience in membrane system process engineering and/or capital project development/execution
• Experience developing technical standards and specifications
• Demonstrated expertise in membrane system design, operation, troubleshooting and optimization
• Strong understanding of dairy processing
• Strong organizational and communication skills; ability to influence technical decisions across multiple facilities and stakeholder groups
• Experience facilitating technical reviews and driving follow-up actions
• Experience supporting capital projects
• Experience implementing standards and effective change management to ensure adoption
• Experience with whey processing, protein concentration, and dairy ingredient manufacturing
• Experience working with leading membrane system suppliers and OEMs