About the role
Thermulon is a UK aerogel insulation company developing a cost-competitive manufacturing process. We are scaling from pilot into commercial-scale production to serve European and global customers.
The Senior Process Engineer owns Thermulon's process technology selection and qualification programme end to end: setting the trial strategy, leading trials with equipment vendors (for example, testing dryers), and recommending the right technology for scale-up, both at our toll-manufacturing partners and in our first commercial-scale plant. You'll also support the toll-manufacturing scale-up, assessing the unit operations to be implemented and contributing to scale-up decisions. This is a senior but hands-on role in a small, lean organisation, working alongside the Lead Process Engineer, the wider process engineering team, R&D and external partners.
Location: London W10, with travel to vendor, partner and plant sites in the UK and Europe
First round interviews will take place w/c 16th November.
What this role needs from you
You'll live Thermulon's values: Safe, Collaborate, Impact, Pace, Innovate and Grow. In practice that means:
An uncompromising attitude to health and safety in trial planning, equipment selection and day-to-day work.
A naturally creative problem solver, comfortable finding practical working solutions when the standard route isn't available, and able to work with high levels of uncertainty.
Genuine energy for getting things done day to day, close to the detail, and comfortable rolling up your sleeves at a vendor's test facility.
Real diligence and care for the integrity of trial data and technical assessments that the projects rely on.
Confidence building relationships with equipment vendors and partners, and holding them to clear trial objectives and standards.
Comfortable operating with high autonomy in a small, lean organisation, managing several workstreams at once.
Willingness and availability to be mobilised to sites in the UK and/or Europe for periods during construction, commissioning, and operation of the plants, including travel to vendor and partner sites for trials. In the future, this may include relocating to a manufacturing site.
Key accountabilities
Process technology selection and qualification
Own the technology selection and qualification programme end to end, setting the trial strategy and priorities and making technology recommendations to senior leadership.
Identify, screen and compare candidate technologies and equipment vendors against technical, safety, cost and scale-up criteria.
Plan and lead equipment trials with vendors (for example, dryers), from small-scale tests through to larger-scale demonstrations, defining objectives, test plans, success criteria, and sample and data requirements.
Attend trials on site and turn the results into clear recommendations for equipment selection.
Own equipment user requirement specifications, enquiry packages and technical bid evaluations.
Define acceptance criteria and lead FAT & SAT testing and commissioning support for the selected equipment.
Ensure trials are run safely, with risk assessments agreed with vendors in advance.
Toll-manufacturing scale-up
Support the toll-manufacturing scale-up project alongside our toll-manufacturing technical lead, assessing the unit operations to be implemented.
Take part in technical meetings where trial results are shared, and contribute to scale-up decisions.
Collect, analyse and report data from vendor trials and toll-manufacturing runs to inform scale-up.
Support technology transfer, including process documentation, troubleshooting and trial support, and contribute to the toll-manufacturing technical risk register, driving relevant actions to closeout.
Safety, documentation and technical leadership
Contribute engineering judgement to HAZIDs, HAZOPs, technical risk assessments and management of change (MOC), and drive actions to closeout, leading through influence.
Provide inputs to process flow…