Plant Engineer

Job Title: Plant Engineer

Job Description

The Plant Engineer supports day-to-day engineering, facilities, utilities, maintenance, and project activities across a food manufacturing plant. This hands-on role focuses on keeping projects moving, improving equipment reliability, supporting maintenance execution, and ensuring facility systems operate safely, compliantly, and efficiently. The Plant Engineer partners closely with Facilities, Maintenance, Engineering, Production, Quality, Safety, contractors, and vendors to support daily operations, capital projects, utility systems, preventive maintenance, troubleshooting, documentation, and continuous improvement. This position suits someone who enjoys being on the plant floor, solving technical problems, communicating effectively, and managing multiple priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.

Responsibilities

• Support the Facilities Manager with daily facilities, utilities, maintenance, and project activities across the plant.
• Take ownership of follow-ups, action items, quotes, schedules, contractor coordination, and project documentation to keep work moving forward.
• Conduct daily floor walks to identify facility issues, utility concerns, safety items, project progress, and repair needs.
• Follow up on open facility issues, repairs, work orders, and department requests to ensure timely resolution.
• Help prioritize urgent needs versus planned work to balance reliability, safety, and productivity.
• Verify that completed work meets expectations and adheres to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards.
• Communicate regularly with Production, Warehouse, Quality, and Maintenance teams on active issues and status updates.
• Escalate risks, delays, or safety concerns quickly to the appropriate stakeholders.
• Assist with planning, tracking, and executing facility and utility projects from scope development through completion.
• Create clear scopes of work for contractors, vendors, and internal maintenance teams.
• Request quotes, compare proposals, follow up with vendors, and help prepare purchase requisitions and project justifications.
• Gather field information such as measurements, photos, equipment data, and drawings to support project planning.
• Develop project scopes, contractor walk-through notes, and bid comparison summaries to support decision-making.
• Coordinate schedules with vendors, contractors, production, and maintenance to minimize operational disruption.
• Track materials, parts, lead times, permits, and installation requirements to keep projects on schedule.
• Monitor project progress and help ensure work is completed safely, on time, and within scope.
• Support shutdown planning, weekend work, equipment installations, and project tie-ins as needed.
• Assist with layout changes, equipment moves, room build-outs, piping modifications, utility upgrades, and facility improvements.
• Support troubleshooting and root cause analysis for facility and utility systems, including HVAC, boilers, air compressors, chillers, pumps, fans, process piping, water systems, wastewater systems, docks, doors, and building systems.
• Contribute to reliability improvements for boilers, air compressors, HVAC, chillers, pumps, fans, water systems, and other facility equipment.
• Review work orders, identify repeat failures, and help develop corrective actions to reduce downtime and recurring issues.
• Help build critical spare parts lists and enhance preventive maintenance tasks to improve equipment reliability

Essential Skills

• Bachelor"s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related technical field preferred.
• 0-2 years of experience in manufacturing, facilities, utilities, maintenance, project engineering, or plant engineering preferred.
• Strong mechanical and technical understanding of industrial facility systems.
• Experience working with contractors, vendors, maintenance teams, and production teams.
• Experience in food, beverage, packaging, or other regulated manufacturing environments preferred.
• Experience with AutoCAD, basic layouts, P&IDs, or equipment drawings preferred

Job Type & Location

This is a Permanent position based out of Graham, NC.

Pay and Benefits

The pay range for this position is $70000.00 - $80000.00/yr.

6% Bonus 96 Hours PTO Phone Reimbursement

Workplace Type

This is a fully onsite position in Graham,NC.

Application Deadline

This position is anticipated to close on Aug 7, 2026.

About Actalent

Actalent is a global leader in engineering and sciences services and talent solutions. We help visionary companies advance their engineering and science initiatives through access to specialized experts who drive scale, innovation and speed to market. With a network of almost 20,000 consultants and 5,000 clients across the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe, Actalent serves many of the Fortune 500. We are proud to be an Engineering News-Record (ENR) Top 500 Design Firm for our engineering design services and a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing winner for both client and talent service.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and will consider all applications without regard to race, sex, age, color, religion, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information or any characteristic protected by law.

If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation, such as the modification or adjustment of the job application process or interviewing process due to a disability, please email actalentaccommodation@actalentservices.com for other accommodation options.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, for all positions located in the city and county of San Francisco, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Massachusetts Lie Detector: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): We may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our hiring process, including sourcing, screening, and evaluating candidates. AI helps assess applications and qualifications, but final decisions are made by our hiring team. By applying, you acknowledge and agree that your application may be reviewed using AI tools.