Process Principal Design Engineer

Overview

As a Process Principal Designer in the Water sector, you lead discipline design delivery within the Engineering Design Team, ensuring technical excellence and compliance with H&S and CDM standards. You’ll provide technical direction on complex water/wastewater designs, mentor engineers, and govern design output quality while collaborating with clients and supply chains. You drive buildable, safe, and cost-effective solutions and support knowledge sharing across the discipline.

Pay / Benefits

• generous holiday entitlement
• car benefit scheme
• agile working
• annual pay review and discretionary bonus
• pension plan
• private medical scheme options

Responsibilities

• Ensure technical compliance and quality of design outputs
• Act as default approver for design outputs to maintain technical assurance
• Drive optimal, cost-aware designs balancing capex and opex
• Lead on CDM compliance where required
• Ensure buildability, safety in construction, and operability of designs
• Maintain procedural governance across design activities
• Collaborate with project delivery peers to meet client specs and HSE standards
• Provide technical problem solving across the project lifecycle and manage risk/opportunity
• Champion lessons learnt and feed improvements into future schemes
• Line-manage senior design engineers and mentor early career staff
• Support staff development toward professional accreditation (e.g., IChemE)

Key requirements

• Degree in Engineering or equivalent
• Chartered member of a recognised professional engineering body (strong preference)
• Expert in process calculations, mass balances, heat balances, and hydraulic calculations
• Expert in creating Process Block Diagrams, PFDs, and P&IDs
• Expert in developing Process Control Philosophies and Commissioning Plans
• HAZOP leadership experience preferable
• DSEAR experience preferable
• Strong knowledge of multi-disciplinary water engineering design
• Experience checking and approving discipline design packages
• Knowledge of current H&S legislation and British Standards

• Liaising with clients and supply chain to develop solutions
• Strong leadership and mentoring abilities
• Commercial awareness in contracting/consulting environments
• Process calculations
• Mass balances
• Heat balances

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