Facilities Engineering & Operations Manager – Water & Wastewater Treatment

Job title: Facilities Engineering & Operations Manager – Water & Wastewater Treatment

About the Role We are seeking a Facilities Engineering & Operations Manager – Water & Wastewater Treatment to lead a multi-site team of engineers, supervisors, and technicians responsible for the reliability, system hardening, and cost-efficient operation of water, wastewater, and reclaim systems across U.S. facilities. Up to 20% domestic travel to support multi-site operations and improvement initiatives. This role focuses on operational excellence, asset lifecycle optimization, and sustained OPEX reduction, emphasizing strengthening existing infrastructure rather than greenfield expansion. The successful candidate will serve as a central technical authority, driving enterprise-wide standardization, improving system robustness, eliminating single points of failure (SPOFs), and delivering measurable cost savings while ensuring strict environmental compliance.

What You'll Do

• Provide enterprise-level technical leadership for water, wastewater, reclaim, and hazardous waste systems, including RO/DI, UF, ion exchange, and advanced wastewater treatment technologies.
• Lead system hardening initiatives to enhance reliability, redundancy, and resilience of critical utility infrastructure.
• Identify and eliminate single points of failure (SPOFs) through robust redundancy and design improvements.
• Drive root cause failure analysis (RCFA) and ensure implementation of sustainable corrective and preventive actions across all sites.
• Establish and lead global improvement forums and steering committees to drive best known methods (BKMs) and cross-site knowledge sharing.
• Champion FMEA and Facilities Change Review Board (FCRB) processes to proactively manage system risks and changes.
• Lead cross-site initiatives to reduce operating costs (chemicals, energy, consumables, waste disposal) while maintaining or improving system performance.
• Optimize system performance through setpoint tuning, recovery improvement, and process efficiency enhancements.
• Define, track, and enforce KPIs such as cost per unit treated, chemical intensity, energy consumption, and system uptime.
• Deploy Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement methodologies to drive sustainable performance gains.
• Develop and implement predictive and preventive maintenance programs for critical water and wastewater assets.
• Standardize spares strategies, redundancy philosophies, and maintenance procedures across all sites.
• Leverage condition monitoring, data analytics, and digital tools to reduce unplanned downtime.
• Mentor and coach early-career engineers and supervisors, strengthening technical depth and problem-solving capability.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and accountability across all sites.
• Establish structured career development pathways, training programs, and competency frameworks.
• Recognize high performance and proactively address skill gaps to build a motivated, high-capability team.
• Ensure compliance with EPA, NPDES, and state regulatory requirements (e.g., NCDEQ, NYDEC). Support audits, inspections, and regulatory reporting.
• Lead brownfield retrofit and debottlenecking projects focused on reliability improvement and OPEX reduction.
• Prioritize investments based on ROI, payback, and risk reduction, rather than capacity expansion.
• Review and approve engineering designs, technical solutions, and vendor proposals.
• Partner with EHS, manufacturing, and corporate engineering to align on reliability, cost, and sustainability goals.
• Lead technical support for incident investigations and corrective actions.
• Communicate performance metrics, risks, and cost-saving opportunities to executive leadership in a clear, data-driven manner.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Chemical, Environmental, Mechanical Engineering, or related field (required)
• 8–12+ years of experience in industrial water/wastewater engineering and operations
• Demonstrated success in system hardening, brownfield optimization, and cost reduction initiatives
• Experience supporting multi-site or centralized engineering organizations
• Deep expertise in water systems: RO/DI, UF, ion exchange, filtration, reclaim
• Wastewater systems: chemical treatment (and related processes)
• Proven track record delivering quantifiable OPEX savings and reliability improvements
• Ability to drive cross-site standardization and incident investigations
• Regulatory compliance experience with EPA, NPDES, and state requirements

Nice to Have

• Master’s degree preferred
• Semiconductor or advanced manufacturing experience strongly preferred
• Experience mentoring and leading engineering and operations teams