Sr Quality Engineer - Pilot Plant - Golden Valley, MN

OVERVIEW

The Senior Quality Engineer serves as the technical leader for Food Safety and Quality within the JFB Pilot Plant, responsible for robust problem-solving and continuous improvement across all Food Safety and Quality, and related losses. A key differentiator of this role is its unique position to support both the manufactured and as-manufactured environment, while directly collaborating with Innovation, Technology, and Quality business partners to influence the Food Safety and Quality management system. The successful candidate will leverage deep technical expertise, continuous improvement techniques, and digitization initiatives to cultivate strong connections across Innovation, Technology, and Quality functions, establishing themselves as a valued partner within the JFB Pilot Plant and broader business teams. This role also entails serving as a coach and technical leader on the pilot plant floor and within partner business teams, consistently demonstrating engaging leadership behaviors.

The Senior Quality Engineer at the JFB Pilot Plant site will be responsible for leading food safety and quality assurance for our Pet and Flexible experimental innovation. This role also offers the potential to expand support to other strategic platforms in the future.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Safety
Lead Food and Human Safety through Safety 2.0 leadership principles and standards.

• Cultivate a Human Safety Culture that reduces risk to our people and communities by increasing the capability to identify and control critical risk.
• Cultivate a Food Safety Culture that is committed to manufacturing safe food that is compliant with policy and regulatory requirements.

People Leadership

• Role model Engaging Leader behaviors.
• Demonstrate a strong learning mindset for personal development & growth in expanded areas of subject matter expertise.
• Engage internally and externally (NA & globally) with cross-functional partners and Subject Matter Experts and demonstrate quality engineering skills.
• Train, develop content, and coach QEs and plant personnel (SE, operators, etc.).
• Build alignment & strategies with cross-functional partners across the pilot plant.
• Partner with SE and site leadership to advocate and influence for site and product improvements and CAPEX investments.
• Potential leadership of FSQ technicians, FSQ professionals, and mentoring others.

Process Leadership and Ownership
Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory programs leadership.

• Provide FSQ leadership and direction through technical depth in the areas of regulatory compliance, sanitation, food safety risk mitigation, quality improvement, and loss reduction.
• Synthesize JFB Pilot Plant-wide action plans with Operations, R&D, Engineering, and FSQ teams to ensure product specifications and execution of FSQ policies & standards are appropriate and meet system capability and key consumer requirements.

Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory technical leadership & subject matter expertise.

• Deliver training in the areas of food science, applied statistics, regulatory requirements, sanitation, and quality measurement systems.
• Review plans for new and changing systems and ensure effective product safety and sanitary design.
• Serve as experts in systems/programs with cross-plant / corporate/global connections.
• Provide leadership and technical support for R&D, HMM, reformulations, and new product testing.
• Maintain pilot plant food safety programs (FSRA, HACCP, etc.), audit readiness, and GMI policy requirements.
• Provide technical leadership in the identification and implementation of product and process quality improvement opportunities and resultant productivity gains.
• Provide and lead risk assessment analysis and manage issues with non-conforming products to ensure proper control, minimize losses, and conduct root cause analysis to eliminate future occurrences across the pilot plant.

Problem-Solving Leadership

• Provide FSQ leadership and direction through technical depth in the areas of SPC, system capability, fishbone analysis & problem solving.
• Lead problem-solving events of strategic value to the JFB Pilot Plant with cross-functional partners and apply DMAIC / Six Sigma approach and data to appropriately manage non-conformances and issues, prevent re-occurrence, improve product quality, reduce and eliminate risks & related losses, and run to target.

Operations Foundational Systems

• Engage in identification of loss opportunities (food safety, quality, overuse, etc.) to drive performance and influence loss reduction through corrective and preventative actions using foundation systems.
• Actively participate in daily direction setting, scheduling meetings, and managing multiple projects and priorities.

Know your Operation, Data, and Technology

• Lead digitization initiatives, leveraging advanced technologies such as automation, data analytics, and digitalization to enhance quality processes and performance.
• Using quality engineering principles, collect, analyze, and interpret in-process and analytical data to make quality and food safety evaluations, recommend actions for improvement and make data-driven decisions.
• Showcase expertise across Problem Solving, FSQ systems, and Data & Analytics & tools, and coach & mentor QEs and other roles across the JFB pilot plant.
• Identify & execute JFB Pilot Plant-wide HMM, Food Safety and Quality initiatives.

Back-Up Coverage

• This position will also provide backup support as needed to technical partners on the platform team (SE, QE, and Maintenance) and JFB Pilot Plant FSQ Manager, ensuring business continuity and operational efficiency.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering, Food Processing, Food Science, or other related fields with 4 years of relevant quality or manufacturing experience
• Demonstrated ability to manage cross-platform projects, be comfortable with ambiguity, and create clarity of mission and program improvement in a fluid R&D environment.
• Proven ability to work well on a team, build effective relationships, and influence others across all levels of the organization.
• Ability to effectively work with and coach cross-functional teams while affecting change/department direction via influence management
• Demonstrated mechanical aptitude, ability to apply engineering principles, and ability to troubleshoot.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to lead constructive, positive change within the plant environment
• Ability to develop mutual respect with operators, engineers, etc. to execute programs, manage conflict, resolve issues, and achieve goals.
• Clear, concise, well-directed communication.
• Demonstrated knowledge of statistics and related systems (e.g., Minitab), data reporting platforms (e.g., MA, Power BI, Tableau, etc.), MES platforms (e.g., MQIS), advanced analytics and tools (e.g., Seeq, Sight Machine), and FSQ and Supply Chain systems knowledge (SAP, Blueyonder, etc.)

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering, Food Processing or Food Science with 6+ years of relevant quality or manufacturing experience
• Certified Quality Engineer by third party organization or Six Sigma Green Belt certified.
• Strong knowledge of in-process measurement/detection capabilities (e.g., NIR, Vision systems)
• People leadership experience
• Demonstrated mechanical aptitude, ability to apply engineering principles, and ability to troubleshoot.
• Demonstrated leadership and initiative.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate complex organizations.
• Ability to communicate with the leadership team to gain broad support for ideas.

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Applicants for this position must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis, and General Mills will not sponsor applicants for this position for work visas.
• This role is located in Golden Valley, MN and will not consider remote applicants or international applications. General Mills will provide relocation to the candidate selected for this role as long as they meet the relocation assistance policy.

We exist to make food the world loves. But we do more than that. Our company is a place that prioritizes being a force for good, a place to expand learning, explore new perspectives and reimagine new possibilities, every day. We look for people who want to bring their best - bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge one other and grow together. Because becoming the undisputed leader in food means surrounding ourselves with people who are hungry for what's next.

Salary Range

The salary range for this position is $93700.00 - $140700.00 / Annually. At General Mills we strive for each employee's pay at any point in their career to reflect their experiences performance and skills for their current role. The salary range for this role represents the numerous factors considered in the hiring decisions including, but not limited to, educations, skills, work experience, certifications, etc. As such, pay for the successful candidate(s) could fall anywhere within the stated range. Beyond base salary, General Mills offers a competitive Total Rewards package focusing on your overall well-being. We are proud to offer a foundation of health benefits, retirement and financial wellbeing, time off programs, wellbeing support and perks. Benefits may vary by role, country, region, union status, and other employment status factors. You may also be eligible to participate in an annual incentive program. An incentive award, if any, depends on various factors, including, individual and organizational performance.

Reasonable Accommodation Request

If you need to request an accommodation during the application or hiring process, please fill out our online accommodations request form by following this link: Accommodations Request.