Engineer, Principal (Process Engineer)

About the role

The City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities is seeking two Principal Engineers—one for Water and one for Wastewater operations. This is an exciting time to join the City, committed to nurturing talent, fostering growth opportunities, and building strong connections within our workforce.

Responsibilities

• Maintains compliance with water and wastewater permit requirements through regular monitoring and reporting.
• Develops and implements seasonal process plans to optimize chemical and energy use.
• Supports testing of alternative chemical products and develops specifications for new products.
• Reviews and provides technical comments on engineering project specifications and designs.
• Manages contracts with external vendors to support plant process operations.
• Develops scopes and manages contracts for external vendors to support plant process.
• Provides technical input into the development of the Capital Improvement Plan to ensure timely upgrades and renewal of equipment.
• Reviews and provides technical comments on engineering project specifications, designs, and timelines.
• Serves on project advisory committees to support design and construction of infrastructure projects.
• Supervises the development of and reviews regulatory reports to ensure data quality and timely submission.
• Leads and manages internal operational database, ensuring data quality and supports data requests from internal and external partners.
• Leads strategy and manages instrumentation used for process monitoring.
• Performs in-depth analysis to support optimization of liquids and solids processes.
• Develops and reviews standard operating procedures to support plant performance.
• Communicates regularly on process performance to internal stakeholders.
• Monitors regulatory trends and plans for future process impacts, recommending improvements to process and equipment.
• Identifies corrective actions to avoid process upsets and sets early warning parameters.
• Reviews and revises internal process sampling plans and monitoring programs to ensure efficient plant operations.

Qualifications, Special Certifications And Licenses

• Minimum Training and Experience: Bachelor's Degree in engineering, Five years of professional engineering experience in water or wastewater treatment operations.
• Licenses, Certifications, and Other Special Requirements: Virginia Professional Engineering (PE) license or ability to obtain within one year of employment.

Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities

• Typical Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Advanced understanding of processes and instrumentation associated with municipal water and wastewater treatment; ability to perform mass, energy balance, chemical, and hydraulic calculations; understanding of state and federal regulatory requirements related to water and wastewater facility permits; experience reading and commenting on process control narratives for programming of process control systems; knowledge of business and management principles to support the development of annual budgets and process plans; proficiency with Microsoft (MS) Office Suite, Database Management, SCADA.