Principal Project Engineer

The Principal Project Engineer will serve as a technical leader within the TIP NA Engineering organization and an assigned business unit. This role is responsible for providing engineering governance, defining technical standards, and guiding complex capital projects from design through execution. The successful candidate will influence strategy, drive innovation, and ensure consistent, high-quality engineering solutions that support long-term manufacturing capability and business objectives.

• Serve as the design authority for complex engineering systems and projects, including approving designs, defining technical standards, and resolving high-risk technical challenges.
• Provide technical oversight across complex or multi-site capital projects, including validating scope, risk, lifecycle cost, and execution strategy.
• Intervene on critical issues that impact multiple projects and provide guidance to support successful execution.
• Define and govern engineering standards, specifications, documentation practices, and technical governance processes.
• Ensure consistency, technical rigor, and quality across engineering projects and project teams.
• Act as a technical authority across teams and sites, influencing technical direction and key project decisions.
• Partner cross-functionally with operations, PMO, safety, quality, R&D, contractors, and leadership to deliver effective engineering solutions.
• Drive technology direction, innovation, and enterprise-level improvements that strengthen manufacturing capability.

This role supports an assigned business unit within TIP NA, including Canada. Work at this level is highly complex and includes large-scale or technically challenging projects with multiple dependencies, significant risk, and cross-functional impact. The Principal Project Engineer must exercise advanced judgment, prioritize effectively, and make sound decisions in less structured environments.

This position requires approximately 50% travel to plants within the United States and Canada.

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Industrial Engineering, or an equivalent engineering discipline required.
• Master’s degree in a relevant engineering discipline preferred.
• 8–12+ years of applied engineering experience in mechanical systems design, equipment specification, sizing and selection, and automation integration within manufacturing equipment or processes.
• Strong knowledge of engineering standards and codes, structured risk assessment, and hazard analysis.
• Advanced technical reading, writing, engineering analysis, and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency with modeling, drafting, and engineering tools.
• Strong constructability knowledge and field execution support experience, including RFQs, FAT/SAT participation, and contractor oversight.
• Professional or technical credentials such as PE/EIT, PMP or equivalent, and/or WCM / Continuous Improvement certifications preferred, as appropriate to career level.

• Leads through influence with strong technical credibility.
• Mentors others and helps raise organizational engineering capability.
• Communicates complex technical tradeoffs clearly to operations, PMO, safety, quality, R&D, and leadership.
• Demonstrates rigorous decision-making, attention to detail, and a strong safety and compliance mindset.

At Saint-Gobain, our employees have pride in belonging to an organization whose culture is made up of these core values:
Trust, Empowerment, & Collaboration. Our company encourages diversity and inclusion in all its forms while our products make the world a more beautiful, safer, and sustainable home.