Plant Engineer

About the role

We are looking for a hands-on Operations Project Engineer to help run and improve our hydrometallurgical demonstration plant. You will spend more than half your time on the plant floor: running the process, taking samples, keeping the logs accurate, and fixing things when they break. The rest of your time will be spent on the improvement projects that come out of that work, scoping them, specifying them, and getting them installed.

This is a practical, field-engineering role. We care far more about what you have actually built, run and repaired than about where you studied. If you like being close to the process and want the freedom to change it, this is an exciting opportunity to build and develop a First-of-a-kind process.

Key responsibilities

• Run hydrometallurgical processes day to day, including leaching, purification and electrowinning.
• Own operations logs and sampling routines, making sure the data we make decisions from is accurate and complete.
• Monitor plant performance, spot drift early, and act on it.
• Work safely and help maintain a strong safety culture in a plant handling acids and other hazardous materials.
• Carry out hands-on maintenance on pumps, valves, piping, filtration, tanks and instrumentation.
• Diagnose and resolve process and equipment problems, working through to root cause rather than the quick fix.
• Plan and coordinate preventive maintenance, spares and contractor work.
• Scope, design and deliver plant improvement and capital projects from concept through to commissioning.
• Prepare clear designs, preliminary drawings and bills of materials to support the project approval process.
• Contribute to procedures, quality management and production records as the plant scales.

About you

• A background in chemical, process, mechanical or electrical engineering, or process operations experience in hydrometallurgy, minerals, mining or any other relevant manufacturing industry (i.e. Dairy, chemicals etc.)
• Proven hands-on experience in plant operations and maintenance. You can point to specific things you have run, fixed or improved.
• Happy to spend more than half your time on the plant floor, in PPE, doing the work.
• Willing to physically fix things yourself and document learnings for future troubleshooting.
• Able to manage projects with competing priorities and communicate designs and bills of materials clearly to non-specialists.
• Self-directed. You can manage and prioritise your own workload without close supervision.
• A bachelor's degree is preferred, but we will consider candidates without one where the experience and fit are clearly there.
• Experience with laboratory analysis in a production environment is an advantage.

About us

Zethos is a growing team of around 20 people. We have developed a cleaner way to recover zinc and other critical metals from electric arc furnace dust, a by-product of steelmaking that is currently landfilled or processed in high-emissions kilns. Our demonstration plant in Bromley is running, and our first commercial plant is being developed in the United States with a major steelmaking partner.