Technical Engineer, Furnaces

Responsibilities

• Serve as CBW technical authority for ethylene cracking furnace technologies
• Maintain furnace design basis documentation, technical standards, operating guidelines, and engineering best practices
• Evaluate emerging furnace technologies and support long-term technology screening, feasibility studies, and strategic planning
• Interface with licensors, OEMs, EPC contractors, inspection specialists, and industry networks to preserve and advance CBW furnace knowledge
• Drive improvements in ethylene yield, conversion, selectivity, utilization, feed flexibility, and furnace capacity
• Reduce variable cost through improved severity discipline, fuel efficiency, steam usage, decoke timing, and operating strategy
• Develop and maintain performance indicators for COT, coil pressure drop, run length, decoke frequency, choke rates, conversion, selectivity, energy efficiency, CO2 intensity, and furnace availability
• Support furnace models, performance dashboards, benchmarking, and optimization studies
• Provide technical support for tube life management
• Lead or support investigations involving tube failures, coke formation, burner issues, refractory deterioration, TLE failures, flame instability, process upsets, and reliability losses
• Develop long-range furnace replacement, revamp, and upgrade strategies based on risk, production impact, mechanical condition, and business value
• Provide furnace technical support for PHA, HAZOP, LOPA, MOC, risk ranking, and incident investigation processes
• Support corrective action development and closure for furnace-related process safety findings
• Serve as technical lead for initiatives involving furnace safeguards, permissives, trips, flame safety, decoke safety, and safe operating limits
• Provide technical troubleshooting support for startups, shutdowns, unit upsets, furnace trips, feed changes, decokes, emergency events, and capacity constraints
• Develop operator training materials, technical guidance, and lessons learned to strengthen furnace operating capability
• Partner with Operations, Production Engineering, Process Control, and Reliability to convert data into practical operating decisions
• Identify furnace improvement opportunities and develop business cases that integrate safety, reliability, yield, energy, emissions, and production value
• Support FEL development, design basis definition, technology selection, scope development, project reviews, commissioning, and startup
• Provide technical governance for furnace-related capital strategy, including multi-year portfolio planning and value realization
• Evaluate furnace operating strategies and capital options that improve energy efficiency and sustainability performance
• Support environmental compliance, permit-related technical input, and future decarbonization technology evaluation where applicable

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering required or strongly preferred
• Mechanical Engineering or related engineering degree may be considered with significant fired-equipment, olefins, or petrochemical furnace experience
• Minimum 4 years of petrochemical, refining, fired-equipment, or process engineering experience