Confidential Opportunity: Engineering Manager

Location: Central California

Travel: Regional travel required

Compensation: Competitive base salary + bonus potential + benefits

The Opportunity

Our client is a well-established and growing North American manufacturing business seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead capital projects, continuous improvement initiatives, utility management, and plant engineering execution across multiple production sites.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who thrives in fast-moving industrial environments and knows how to bridge engineering, operations, maintenance, cost control, and execution.

The successful candidate will play a critical role in improving plant performance, driving operational efficiencies, supporting site infrastructure, and ensuring projects are delivered on time, on budget, and right the first time.

This is not a role for someone who wants to sit in theory. This is for someone who likes to build, fix, improve, challenge, and deliver.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Lead and execute plant engineering and capital project initiatives across multiple manufacturing locations
• Drive continuous improvement across equipment, process flow, plant layouts, and utility systems
• Partner closely with operations, maintenance, quality, and leadership teams to identify and implement site improvements
• Develop and manage project scopes, timelines, budgets, CapEx proposals, and execution plans
• Oversee contractors, vendors, and external partners to ensure successful project delivery
• Support procurement and management of spare parts, engineering stores, and technical inventory
• Monitor and improve energy usage, utility systems, and sustainability-related initiatives
• Track engineering KPIs and implement best practices to improve reliability, performance, and cost efficiency
• Ensure engineering activities align with applicable regulatory, environmental, and safety standards
• Lead installation, commissioning, testing, and startup of new equipment and systems
• Support technical training and knowledge transfer for plant teams
• Provide engineering leadership and project support across other sites as needed

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering required
• Advanced degree preferred
• 10+ years of engineering experience within a manufacturing environment
• Strong background in:
• Capital projects
• Plant engineering
• Continuous improvement
• Equipment installation / commissioning
• Utilities / infrastructure
• Process optimization
• Experience in highly regulated or process-driven industrial environments such as:
• food & beverage
• chemicals
• pharmaceuticals
• ingredients
• industrial processing
• Proven ability to manage projects from concept through execution
• Strong commercial mindset with experience around budgets, CapEx, cost control, and vendor management
• Ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders and drive results through others
• Comfortable operating in a hands-on, site-based leadership role

Why This Role Stands Out

This is a chance to step into a role where you can actually leave fingerprints on the operation.

You won’t be buried in PowerPoints or trapped in endless meetings pretending to move the needle.

You’ll be trusted to improve systems, modernize infrastructure, lead meaningful projects, and create tangible impact across a real manufacturing footprint.

For the right person, this is the kind of role that can become a serious platform for bigger operational or engineering leadership over time.