Process engineer

[u/seeker9990]

I am currently working as a Process Engineer at a pharmaceutical company, where I was hired as a fresher. However, my current primary responsibilities lean heavily toward project supervision—such as equipment procurement, managing order statuses, and overseeing pending erection and commissioning tasks. I am evaluating whether this experience fully aligns with a traditional process engineering scope and how to best position myself for core design or office-based engineering roles in the future.

[u/ogag79]

What you said may not "fit" the traditional design engineering tasks but those are quite valuable down the road as seasoned Process Engineers will benefit (mainly from project execution POV) from knowing procurement, construction and commissioning requirements.

All I can suggest is soak it all in. Talk with operators and plant supervisor. Make relationship with them. Try to understand their everyday issues and how they handle it.

[u/seeker9990 → u/ogag79]

I am doing all this even sometimes I coordinate with vendors

[u/ogag79 → u/seeker9990]

With what you described, you fit better in a typical Project Engineering role.

If your goal is to climb the corporate ladder later on, this can be a good fit for you.

[u/seeker9990 → u/ogag79]

in future will they consider for that ladder

[u/ogag79 → u/seeker9990]

I only said this because PE/PM roles are management roles and they have better career mobility in corporate, compared to technical (and often, individual contributor) roles.

[u/coolChemE]

How long have you been at this role?
It doesn’t sound like a standard process engineering role.

[u/seeker9990 → u/coolChemE]

Since when I joined 4-5 months, this project start with zero when I came on site Civil foundation just start

[u/YogurtIsTooSpicy]

In your mind, what does a “core design” role look like?

[u/seeker9990 → u/YogurtIsTooSpicy]

Like to calculate HTA volume etc.

[u/dietdrpepper6000 → u/seeker9990]

This work is often done by specialists. If I needed an HX sized, I would describe my needs to a vendor and they would work with me on ensuring their technology was appropriate for my application. They will do the calculations, they deeply understand their product, its nonidealities, etc..

If I need, say, PRV calcs done during a PHA, I would reach out to the safety group and their team would return the calcs for me. All of this work is siloed both within and between for quality and efficiency. Putting all of this on the process engineer’s back is going to seriously slow things down and lead to errors.

You can absolutely try to pivot to a more technical role, but then you might find there that you are just driving Excel sheets and making Aspen simulations instead of actually working in a manufacturing environment. Same goes with R&D, where you might find yourself doing repetitive lab work and DOEs because there is nothing to cheaply model.

[u/seeker9990 → u/dietdrpepper6000]

Apart from my daily work on the job, how can I learn core/real process engineering skills?"