Process Engineer (Tempo)

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are. In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

About the role

The Home Chef Ready to Heat (RTH) Process Engineer ensures site readiness for RTH product expansions and drives continuous improvement across labor, process, and productivity within RTH operations. This role partners closely with the Tempo Operations team and cross-functional peers — both at the corporate level and at the plant level — to support the expansion of the Tempo brand and complete ad hoc assignments for the Sr. Manager of Continuous Improvement and the broader Tempo CI team as a whole. This position requires at least 50% travel.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate and execute site openings and RTH product expansions, working with RTH site leadership for planning and preparedness.
• Aid plant and corporate teams in scoping out new initiatives to support rolling out new product lines, increasing capacity and complexity, and improving metric performance while providing plant teams with the ownership to implement those initiatives and providing appropriate support as needed.
• Build and maintain a roadmap for new RTH initiatives being rolled out to the site from corporate business partners.
• Assist plant leaders and corporate stakeholders in following a stage gate process for new product launches to ensure proper change management.
• Advocate for plant teams to corporate partners.
• Partner cross-functionally to identify and drive improvements across RTH labor, process, and people-related gaps.
• Aid in analyzing labor, process, and people-related data across sites to identify root causes of gaps and opportunities for improvement, partnering with the Tempo Operations team to implement solutions.
• Assist in tracking, analyzing, and reporting on process and OEE performance to support root cause problem-solving and drive operational improvements across sites.
• Identify gaps that require larger-scale solutions and project manage the initiative end-to-end in partnership with relevant teams as needed.
• Develop RTH network SOPs for uniformity across RTH processes.
• Ensure standard operating procedures exist for all critical RTH tasks and align processes across all fulfillment sites.
• Act as a liaison between fulfillment centers to ensure that the best of Home Chef’s knowledge/processes are communicated between facilities and work to oversee initiatives to streamline across facilities where appropriate.
• Using performance metrics, evaluate the success of Ready to Heat processes and develop and implement continuous improvement initiatives.

Requirements

• Completion of a four-year degree program in Engineering, Operations Management, Supply Chain, or a related field.
• 1–3 years of experience in operations or continuous improvement is strongly preferred.
• Experience in food manufacturing is preferred.
• Strong candidates would have experience in supply chain, plant operations, or operations excellence roles.
• Exceptional communication with demonstrated ability to drive results, manage conflict, achieve alignment, and collaboration amongst cross-functional teams and with external stakeholders.
• Excellent project management ability, with experience overseeing and prioritizing among multiple workstreams, and facilitating problem-solving amongst diverse stakeholders.
• Must be willing and able to accommodate up to 50% travel to the fulfillment centers.
• Strong analytical skills required, with experience using Excel to build models and demonstrate findings to partners.
• A growth mindset and demonstrated ownership — this role is designed to expand in scope and autonomy as the person develops in it.
• Ideal candidate has a strategic mindset, with the ability to see the big picture as well as diving into the weeds when necessary.

Benefits

• Candidates can experience Home Chef as a customer - enter promo code PEOPLE30 for $30 off your first order!
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance available.
• Paid holidays, sick time, and vacation time.
• 401k program.
• Flexible spending accounts for qualified medical, dependent care, parking, or transit expenses.

How We Work Together

• We are humble team players. We are warm and gracious with team members and customers. We seek feedback to improve ourselves - and respectfully listen to and accept input.
• We are pragmatic next-level thinkers. We come up with novel and unique ideas. We explore new strategies to avoid being constrained by conventional thinking.
• We take ownership. We approach ambiguous problems, prepared to dive in, get curious, and learn more.
• We are results-driven, always challenging ourselves to exceed goals.

Be at Home at Home Chef

We all show up authentically at Home Chef. Our team includes individuals with a variety of identities, backgrounds, and perspectives. You can trust that you’ll be able to bring your whole self to an inclusive and enjoyable workplace. We welcome people of all races, colors, religions, national origin or ancestry, sex (including sexual identity), age, physical or mental disabilities, pregnancy, veteran or military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, arrest record or expunged/sealed convictions, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law.