Senior Process Development Engineer: Wastewater Scale-Up

Company Description Recovered Potential is focused on removing and recovering nitrogen from wastewater to help waste handlers meet regulations, protect the environment, and support a circular nitrogen economy. Spun out of Stanford University, the company is grounded in cutting-edge academic research and practical industrial applications. Team members have the unique opportunity to join a early-stage team and contribute to impactful work at the intersection of sustainability, water treatment, and resource recovery.

Position Title: Senior Process Development Engineer

Reports to: Chief Technology Officer

Classification: Exempt

Position Purpose: The Senior Process Development Engineer plays a critical role in the strategic scaling and deployment of the Company’s initial wastewater treatment products. The position requires the continuous exercise of discretion and independent judgment to scope, design, and operationalize pilot wastewater treatment installations. The individual must balance high-level engineering strategy, partner management, and team leadership to drive rapid and rigorous technology scale-up and deployment.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead technical scoping and process engineering design for field installations of initial wastewater treatment products.
• Manage technical communications and partnerships with external partners at manufacturer, vendor, consultant, engineer, contractor, and operator levels.
• Direct the procurement and physical logistics for demonstration systems, and lead the hands-on laboratory validation, field deployment, on-site operations, and subsequent engineering upgrades at partner facilities, including travel to partner sites as required.
• Evaluate, synthesize, and report deployment progress, performance data, and operational milestones to the executive leadership.
• Work closely with the broader R&D team to design, execute, and evaluate early-stage lab testing and advanced experiments that expand R&D bandwidth, directly optimize field operations, and improve long-term system reliability and process controls.
• Drive team-building efforts by auditing field demonstration system needs, designing new job descriptions, formulating personnel budgets, and co-facilitating the onboarding process.
• Manage, mentor, and direct assigned field demonstration team personnel, including establishing performance milestones, conducting regular reviews, ensuring comprehensive safety compliance, and supporting professional development.

Work Standards and Expectations:

• Maintain transparent, prompt, and clear communications with executive leadership, especially when operational support or project approvals are required.
• Represent the Company with the highest level of professionalism when interacting with external partners of all levels.
• Establish and maintain precise, organized corporate records documenting designs, intellectual property ideation, experimental data, vendor partnerships, and procurement tracking.
• Actively model and enforce a culture of safety, ensuring all operations comply with relevant protocols and that safety concerns are immediately communicated and mitigated.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and psychologically safe working environment for all direct reports and team members.
• Demonstrate proactive leadership by identifying operational gaps, engineering inefficiencies, or resource constraints, and independently implementing strategic solutions.
• Maintain the flexibility necessary for an early-stage technology startup environment, including executing diverse tasks and adapting to evolving operational priorities as assigned by management.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical, Environmental, Mechanical, or Electrical Engineering.
• Proven hands-on experience designing, building, operating, and troubleshooting physical pilot-scale equipment or fluidic systems.
• Proficiency in process flow design principles, details, and practice.
• Familiarity with process controls & instrumentation, data acquisition, and integrating basic hardware sensors (e.g., pH, conductivity).
• Willingness to work on-site at a local pilot facility and the ability to navigate complex industrial…