Operations Process Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Process Engineer

We are seeking a highly driven and hands-on Process Engineer to design, optimize, and scale food production processes across our operations. This role will play a critical part in improving efficiency, reducing waste, and ensuring consistent, high-quality output as we continue to grow and evolve our production footprint.

This is not a purely theoretical role, you will be on the floor, partnering cross-functionally to solve real production challenges, implement scalable solutions, and support new product innovation.

What You'll Do

• Design, improve, and scale food production processes across mixing, cooking, cooling, and packaging operations to drive throughput, consistency, and quality at scale.
• Lead the development of unified processes, SOPs, and best practices across multiple sites to ensure consistency, repeatability, and operational alignment; eliminate variation and build scalable systems that support growth.
• Drive a culture of operational excellence by leading structured continuous improvement initiatives (Lean, Six Sigma), focusing on waste reduction, labor efficiency, throughput optimization, and cost control.
• Analyze production, yield, and downtime data to identify trends, inefficiencies, and opportunities, and translate insights into actionable improvements that deliver measurable impact.
• Identify and resolve true root causes of production challenges, implementing sustainable, long-term fixes and building processes that prevent recurrence.
• Act as a change agent across operations, driving adoption of new processes, influencing stakeholders at all levels, and ensuring alignment between engineering, production, QA, and leadership teams.
• Identify opportunities to better leverage automation, equipment, and technology to improve efficiency, consistency, and labor optimization; partner with engineering and maintenance to implement more effective production solutions.
• Take ownership from concept through execution, driving implementation on the floor, validating results, and ensuring adoption and sustainability of improvements.
• Partner cross-functionally with QA, R&D, Maintenance, Culinary, and Operations to align on product quality, process capability, and execution standards.
• Support new product introductions from pilot through full-scale production, ensuring processes are robust, repeatable, and operationally efficient.
• Lead process validation efforts and develop clear, actionable documentation (SOPs, work instructions, control plans) to ensure consistent execution across teams and sites.
• Ensure all processes are designed and executed in compliance with HACCP, USDA/FDA, and GMP standards, embedding food safety into every stage of production.

What You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Food Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field
• 5–10+ years of experience in food or CPG manufacturing environments
• Bilingual Spanish (written and verbal) is highly preferred to effectively communicate and collaborate with frontline production teams
• Strong knowledge of food safety regulations and quality systems (HACCP, GMP, USDA/FDA)
• Proven experience with process optimization, line balancing, and production scaling
• Hands-on experience with Lean, Six Sigma, or similar continuous improvement frameworks
• Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate data into actionable improvements
• Demonstrated ability to lead projects and influence cross-functional teams
• Comfortable working both on the production floor and at a strategic level
• Experience in high-volume or commissary-style food production
• Exposure to automation, production technology, or equipment integration
• Background supporting scratch cooking or complex food processes
• Ability to build scalable systems across multi-site operations

Salary Range: $115,000 - $130,000

Equal Opportunity Employer This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.