Research Engineer

We invite you to Explore the Potential of being part of something Clearly Essential! 

At Compass Minerals, we harvest, mine and produce essential minerals that deal with nature’s challenges, including – but not limited to – highway deicing salt for the winter months, water softening salt and plant nutrition that improves the quality and yield of crops.

We transform Earth’s resources that ultimately help keep people safe, feed the world and enrich lives, every day.

With our company headquarters in Overland Park, KS, Compass Minerals operates 15 production and packaging facilities with more than 2,000 employees throughout the U.S., Canada, Brazil and the U.K.

We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone’s voice matters.

We believe in work that creates value for all stakeholders, encourages collaboration at all levels and focuses on a high-performance environment where employees are challenged to be their best. 

Summary: 

At Compass Minerals, we harvest, mine and produce essential minerals that deal with nature’s challenges, including – but not limited to – highway deicing salt for the winter months, water softening salt, lithium for sustainable energy and plant nutrition that improves the quality and yield of crops.

We transform Earth’s resources that ultimately help keep people safe, feed the world and enrich lives, every day.

With our company headquarters in Overland Park, KS, Compass Minerals operates in 27 locations throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil & the United Kingdom.

We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone’s voice matters.

We believe in work that creates value for all stakeholders, encourages collaboration at all levels and focuses on a high-performance environment where employees are challenged to be their best.

This Research Engineer position is based at the Compass Minerals Innovation Center located in Stilwell, KS and has a central role in designing and operation of lab-scale equipment and pilot scale-up process of manufacturing essential mineral based products for our customers.

The individual will be working with manufacturing, commercial and R&D teams in providing process expertise to increase production and enable new mineral products from company’s core areas (Salt, Lithium and Potassium Mining) help enrich lives.

Essential Job Functions:   Include but are not limited to the following:

(Management reserves the right to add or modify the duties and responsibilities at any time.)

• Leads development, validation, documentation and implementation of lab-scale process studies
• Ability to design pilot scale processes in the lab that mimic key processes at production sites.

  Use lab scale processes to identify and overcome process-related challenges.

• Designs and runs validation studies for new and existing lab-scale processes.
• Be a core contributor to an excellent R&D organization, tasked with identifying next generation products and support development of these products to commercialization. 
• Directs running of process equipment, preparation of samples and analyses on analytical instrumentation.
• Routinely engages with production facilities, and serves as the technical expert for processes to troubleshoot issues and improve operations
• Quickly grasp each site’s production process along with their unique challenges. 
• Assist in revising pilot scale processes and other manufacturing methods to increase production, improve reliability and enable production of high quality products
• Provide data-driven, sustainable recommendations for improvement.
• Interact with operations team to provide fundamental insight into process changes and capital authorization requests. 
• Interact with quality and operations personnel to review trends and preempt problems.
• Help develop new process technologies internally and with external collaborators to protect novel technology through IP.
• Propose and lead new process and product ideas through the Stage & Gate process.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Education and/or Experience:

• PhD degree in Chemical or Mechanical Engineering with 0-3 years of experience.

• Proficient in designing, constructing and operation of lab and pilot scale process equipment.
• Must have a working knowledge in inorganic chemistry, mineral extraction.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

  Must be able to communicate effectively and persuasively throughout the organization.

• Must be proficient in Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Project and statistical packages.
• Experience at manufacturing sites and/or mining operations is a plus.
• Experience with scale-up processes and equipment for new product launches is a plus.

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• The employee may occasionally work in wet and/or humid conditions; with toxic or caustic chemicals and moderate heat.

  Compass makes employee safety a top priority and proper engineering controls will be put in place to mitigate any hazards.

  The noise level in the work environment may typically be moderate to loud.

  When and where required, all work environment exposures are reduced to acceptable occupational levels through the distribution and usage of personnel protective equipment.

  The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.

Compass Minerals is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information.

Compass Minerals is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities.