Pilot Plant Process Specialist

About us

The Bland Company is a foodtech and biotech startup on a mission to make sustainable eating easy, affordable, and accessible for everyone. We’re building a new class of functional plant proteins — transforming agricultural byproducts into high-performance food ingredients that are flavor-neutral, highly functional, and scalable. We’re a fast-moving team of six and are backed by leading US investors. We combine protein science, engineering, and food innovation to turn sustainable science into industrial reality.

The Role :

We’re looking for a Pilot Engineer to scale up our benchtop processes by operating and executing experiments on pilot scale equipment.

You’ll be responsible for translating lab-scale extraction, separation, and drying processes into reliable, repeatable pilot-scale operations. You’ll own day-to-day running of our pilot line, process optimization, and data collection — working closely with protein scientists, engineers, and manufacturing partners to bridge R&D and commercialization.

Key Responsibilities :

• Operate and maintain pilot-scale equipment including centrifuges, filtration systems, reactors, dryers, and mixers
• Use engineering design, data-driven optimization, and process innovation
• Execute and document pilot runs following process parameters and safety standards
• Support commissioning, calibration, and preventive maintenance of equipment
• Draft and maintain SOPs, batch records, and scale-up reports
• Scale up extraction, precipitation, and drying processes from lab to pilot level
• Troubleshoot process deviations and perform root cause analysis
• Collect and analyze process data (yields, purity, moisture, functional metrics) to drive optimization
• Develop and analyze mass and energy balances;

use statistical tools to correlate process conditions with product performance.

Requirements :

What We Offer :