Sr Process Engineer

Senior Process Engineer

Food & Beverage / Sanitary Process Engineering | Madison / Amherst, Wisconsin area

The Opportunity

We're partnering with a growing food and beverage process engineering firm in Wisconsin to find a Senior Process Engineer who wants real ownership, not a supporting role. This is a newly created position designed to take true end-to-end process design work off the Engineering Manager's plate as the company scales.

You'll own projects from concept through commissioning: mass balances, process flow diagrams, full P&ID design, equipment sizing and specification. This isn't editing someone else's drawings or filling in the gaps behind a senior engineer. You're the one designing the mix-proof valve clusters, specifying the CIP systems, and sitting across the table from the client to figure out exactly what their plant needs.

What You'll Own

• Full P&ID, PFD, and mass balance ownership on food and beverage capital projects, concentrated in dairy but spanning cheese, beverage, protein, and other sanitary processing verticals
• Hands-on design of mix-proof valve clusters and fully automated sanitary systems
• Equipment sizing, specification, and RFQ development
• Direct client relationships, from scoping conversations through startup and commissioning
• Utility and equipment matrices, SOPs/SSOPs, and functional/process descriptions

What Success Looks Like

In your first 90 days: you're onboarded to the company's sanitary design standards and equipment supplier landscape, shadowing active projects, and demonstrating you can independently design a mix-proof valve cluster and a basic P&ID.

By 180 days: you're owning P&ID and process design on at least one active project with minimal oversight, communicating with clients directly, and contributing to equipment/utility matrix and RFQ development.

By year one: you're fully owning projects concept-through-commissioning, meaningfully reducing the Engineering Manager's day-to-day design load, and driving process-improvement work.

What We're Looking For

Must-Haves:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering
• 8-10+ years of process engineering experience (flexible for candidates with 5-7 years coming directly out of dairy plant operations)
• Hands-on dairy or equivalent high-sanitary process design experience, including independent mix-proof valve cluster design
• True, demonstrated ownership of P&IDs, PFDs, mass balances, and equipment/utility matrices
• Strong customer-facing communication skills
• Ability to travel domestically approximately 30%

Nice-to-Haves:

• Supervisory or mentoring experience
• AutoCAD (isometric drawings); SolidWorks, Revit, or Lucid experience a plus
• Experience writing SOPs/SSOPs and functional/process descriptions
• International project experience or passport eligibility
• Packaging systems experience
• Consulting or systems-integration background (preferred over plant-operations-only experience)

Who Thrives Here

This role is built for someone who takes ownership without being asked twice, communicates clearly and directly, and genuinely enjoys the variety of solving a different process puzzle for every client. You'll fit right in if you're collaborative, low-ego, and more interested in getting the design right than being the smartest person in the room.

This isn't the right fit if you're used to handing off P&ID work to someone else, prefer to stay behind the scenes rather than work directly with clients, or are looking for a narrowly defined, single-industry role.

The Seat in Summary

• True end-to-end design ownership, not downstream editing
• A growing, founder-transitioning company building out its engineering bench
• Variety across dairy, cheese, beverage, protein, and other sanitary processing projects
• A collaborative, tight-knit team culture
• A real path toward technical leadership, mentoring, or business development as the company scales

This position is being managed by Titus Talent Strategies on behalf of our client. Interested candidates should apply directly through this posting.