Commissioning Engineer
Wellington region
Low to mid $100,000s
Take a first-of-a-kind clean energy system from build to live customer sites. Hands-on, varied, with a path to lead as plant installations grow.
• Process or chemical engineer, or mechanical engineer with a thermal background
• Hands-on commissioning of first-of-its-kind clean energy plant
• Early hire with a real path to lead as installations grow
On pay, think low to mid $100,000s, with room to move for the right person. If you are close and not quite sure, it is still worth a conversation.
This is a move into clean energy, and the work has real variety. It is not the same commissioning job on repeat, and it will not keep you stuck in an office or on one site. It suits a hands-on commissioning engineer who likes solving technical problems, is open to a Wellington region base, and wants a role that can grow into leading a team or running installations.
The company's preference is a process or chemical engineer. Failing that, a mechanical engineer with a thermal background who can pick up the process side. That grounding in process and heat is what the role leans on most.
You would own each unit's commissioning from end to end. Build and test it at HQ, acceptance test it live on a customer site, then help keep it running remotely. Every install is set up a little differently, so no two are the same, and you act as a de facto project engineer on each one.
Part of the job is back at the office too, running and diagnosing live plants remotely off a control screen. So it suits someone who is both at home with a laptop tracing a fault, and on site with a spanner.
Why you'll love this
You take a system the whole way, from a workshop prototype to running live on a customer site. Not many engineering roles cover that span, and the team is small enough that you get real range in what you take on.
There is real environmental good in it too. The systems let industrial customers cut their fossil fuel use, which lowers their emissions and their running costs at once, and one investor who backs companies for their environmental record rates this one at the top of their portfolio. The company is past its research phase but not yet at full industrial scale, so there is little bureaucracy and no corporate culture to navigate. People here take charge of their own work and get on with it.
Where this can go
This is an early hire into the commissioning function, so there is room to grow. Give it around eighteen months to two years on the front line, and the direction is largely yours: leading a commissioning team, moving into operations and maintenance, running the project side of installations, or stepping back into the design of the next prototype. This business tends to shape roles around the person.
The travel and the hours
Around 9 weeks on the road a year at the current pace, mostly across New Zealand and Australia, with roughly three installs planned this year.
The hours are not a straight nine-to-five. First-of-a-kind machines throw up faults you cannot always predict, so there is evening and weekend work during deployments and testing, the odd early start or callout, and a shared on-call rotation. It is offset with rostered time off and shared across the team. It suits people who enjoy this sort of work and have room for the occasional late night.
What you'll do
• Lead installation, hot and cold commissioning, and site acceptance testing at customer sites
• Diagnose and run live plants remotely from the office, and back up site technicians when they are stuck
• Test new equipment, prototypes, and sub-assemblies
• Plan and run experimental campaigns to validate R&D work, in the workshop and on site
• Track system health from operational data and catch faults early
What you'll need
• A process or chemical engineering background is what is ideally wanted here. Failing that, a mechanical engineer with a thermal background who can pick up the process side
• At least two years commissioning custom or first-of-a-kind equipment, pilot plants, or project work with plenty of troubleshooting.
• Confidence reading P&IDs, control philosophies, and functional documentation
• Enough controls and computing comfort to read a control screen and see where a fault sits (think Schneider PLCs, 4 to 20 mA, standard industrial interfaces)
• Real hands-on ability, from spotting a misaligned flange to tracing a broken relay, plus a calm, methodical head for problems no one has seen before
• Comfort with travel and non-standard hours
Bonus: experience with biomass or coal combustion, or solid-fuel boilers and burners. Electrical work is covered by a contract electrician, so this is not an electrical role.
About the company
This is a clean energy technology company moving from research into commercial deployment. The core technology is patented and already proven at a working commercial site. It owns and operates the equipment on the customer's site and charges for what it delivers, well below the cost of the fossil fuel setup it replaces, with no capital outlay to switch. Cleaner and cheaper is a big part of why the order pipeline is building, with contracts ready to sign and around three new installs planned in the coming year.
It is an early-stage business. Backing is in place, with a clear runway and interest from European investors, but this is a growth ride rather than a steady state. Get in now, and you can become one of the people the whole operation leans on. You would report to the CTO, and the aim is to build lasting capability in the team, so the business does not depend on any single person.
About the location
Based in the Wellington region, with regular travel to sites around New Zealand and Australia. If you have been thinking about a move to Wellington, here is a good reason to move.
Please Note: This role is open exclusively to New Zealand Citizens, Permanent Residents, and Resident Visa holders.
To Apply
Click the Apply button.
Or contact me for more information.
David Milmine (Director and Senior Engineering Recruiter) at PeopleLogic
W: https://www.peoplelogic.co.nz/
P: +64 9 884 0733
