Maintenance Reliability Engineer

Mitsubishi Chemical America is seeking a Maintenance Reliability Engineer to join our SoarnoL team in La Porte, Texas. This hands-on role combines strong mechanical fundamentals with practical field experience in a chemical manufacturing environment.

About the role

You'll spend approximately 50% of your time focused on reliability initiatives, 30–40% supporting equipment and troubleshooting in the field, and the remainder supporting reliability and capital projects.

Responsibilities

• Troubleshoot mechanical equipment issues alongside Maintenance and Operations, providing second-level technical support when problems require engineering expertise.
• Improve the reliability and performance of both rotating and stationary equipment, including pumps, mechanical seals, bearings, blowers, piping, valves, tanks, and pressure vessels.
• Investigate recurring equipment failures and develop practical, sustainable solutions that improve equipment performance and reduce downtime.
• Apply maintenance and reliability best practices, including Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA), Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), FMEA, and asset criticality principles.
• Support mechanical systems and reliability-related Management of Change (MOC) activities.
• Partner with the Engineering team on capital projects to ensure maintenance and reliability requirements are incorporated into equipment design and installation.
• Develop concepts and technical documentation for maintenance-related equipment repairs, replacements, and improvements.
• Support equipment checkout, commissioning, and start-up activities.
• Participate in Process Hazard Analyses, safety audits, and incident investigations as needed.
• Maintain equipment documentation, engineering files, procedures, specifications, and drawings to support long-term mechanical integrity.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering
• 5+ years of mechanical engineering experience in a chemical plant environment
• Strong hands-on experience maintaining, troubleshooting, repairing, overhauling, or installing rotating machinery and stationary equipment
• Working knowledge of pumps, mechanical seals, bearings, piping, valves, tanks, and pressure vessels
• Knowledge of maintenance and reliability best practices
• Understanding of Process Safety Management (PSM), particularly as it relates to mechanical and asset integrity
• Experience with reliability methodologies such as RCM, FMEA, asset criticality, or root cause analysis
• Ability to work effectively across Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, and SHE teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) or Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE)
• Root Cause Failure Analysis training
• Experience with centrifugal and positive displacement pumps
• Experience supporting mechanical reliability improvements within a PSM-covered chemical or process manufacturing facility

Benefits

This role offers visibility in the plant, hands-on equipment work, and collaboration with experienced maintenance professionals to solve real mechanical reliability challenges.

Pay

The salary range for this position is $130,000–$140,000. Factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate’s work experience, education/training, job-related skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations may influence base pay offered. This salary may also be subject to geographic adjustment if authorization is granted to work outside of the posted location.