Pilot Process Engineer, Recycling & Battery Materials

About the role

Pilot Process Engineer, Recycling & Battery Materials | Tesla (Manufacturing)

Location: Hutto, Texas | Req ID: 278323 | Job Type: Full-time

What to Expect

Tesla’s Battery Recycling Program is looking for a highly motivated Process Engineer to work on a critical challenge facing the world’s energy transition – closing the battery minerals and metals loop. This includes the scale-up of novel battery recycling processes and operation of pilot plants.

As a Process Engineer, you will study our novel manufacturing processes, drive their continuous development at pilot scale, and be the first on-the-ground, technical point of contact for pilot plant operations. You will design and operate DOEs and provide technical support to the operations team. You will be responsible for maintaining and transferring all gathered process knowledge to the operations team. You will directly drive equipment improvement and sustainment by troubleshooting equipment issues and implementing improvement projects.

What You'll Do

• Serve as the process owner for assigned pilot plant unit operations from daily running through sustained performance
• Execute and supervise pilot plant trials, including setup, startup, operation, process monitoring, and shutdown
• Own DOE/test-plan execution—including planning support, run readiness, data collection, and clear reporting of results
• Maintain procedures, HAZCOM, and standards
• Develop and own operating procedures, safety protocols, and basic maintenance/sustainment plans for unit operations
• Build and maintain reliable data acquisition and simple dashboards so performance, drift, and failures are visible early
• Identify and lead improvement projects on your equipment/processes (reliability, throughput, yield, quality, safety, ease of operation)
• Enforce and model MOC, LOTO, PSSR, and permitting best practices
• Train and coach operators on standard work; ensure fidelity to the process and encourage ownership at the floor level

What You'll Bring

• Degree in Chemical Engineering, Process Engineering, Materials Engineering, or Equivalent Experience
• Strong engineering fundamentals and demonstrated ability to apply them to real equipment and process problems
• 0–3 years of experience in a chemical, materials, or manufacturing environment (internships, co-ops, pilot plant, and hands-on project experience count)
• Motivation to own equipment and results—not just complete tasks
• Comfort operating in a pilot environment: hands-on with equipment, fast-paced troubleshooting, and incomplete information
• Aptitude for process monitoring, structured data collection, basic analysis, and clear technical communication
• Ability to write practical procedures and explain issues in plain language to operators and engineers
• Familiarity with SPC, process dashboards, or building simple data workflows
• Prior responsibility for a tool, skid, line area, or lab/pilot unit operation