Principal R&D Engineer

Join Energy Recovery and Help Build a Sustainable Future At Energy Recovery, we build products that help limit global temperature rise, reduce carbon emissions, provide safe drinking water for millions of people, and bring efficiency and sustainability to a range of industries. Our products help customers avoid approximately 19.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year -- equivalent to removing over 4.7 million cars from the road! In addition to innovating world-class products that help our customers and the environment, our employees enjoy a diverse, collaborative work culture, as well as extensive company benefits that support the overall wellbeing of our staff. This includes everything from generous health plans and time off, paid family leave, subsidized lunches and company events, and opportunities for charitable giving and volunteering in the community. What You Can Look Forward To: What You Will Do: Serve as R&D technical lead on various New Technology and New Product development projects involving fluid machines such as pressure exchangers, centrifugal and reciprocating pumps, turbines, turbochargers etc. Lead / participate in the entire development cycle of a fluid machine including 1-D sizing (mechanical & hydraulic), engineering analyses, detailed design & layout prep, design/selection of rotor-bearing systems, seals & secondary flow paths, materials selection, validation test rig development, experimental validation & release to manufacturing. Apply a combination of design, modeling (FEA, CFD, 1-D system models), testing and materials expertise to solve complex technical problems and make sound engineering trade-offs. Define validation test plans and work with US and India-based teams to obtain high quality data, confirm model predictions and refine designs. Collaborate daily with multi-national, cross-functional teams across time zones, including R&D, product engineering, manufacturing, quality and business units. Provide technical guidance and design review leadership to India-based engineers and help establish engineering best practices for the India team. Follow ERI’s structured, phase-gated development process, leading design reviews and documentation at each phase. Contribute to the R&D technology roadmap and identify opportunities to expand ERI's product lines. Other duties and projects as assigned. What You Bring to the Table: Master's degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering (or related discipline) with 10+ years of relevant industry experience required. PhD desirable. Demonstrated track record of developing fluid machines or other high-pressure fluid equipment, taking at least two products from concept through validation and release to manufacturing, required. Experience working with multi-national teams across geographies and time zones required. Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical work of others is required. Proficiency in CAD packages such as SolidWorks/Onshape/Creo/NX/CATIA is required. Expertise in commercial FEA and/or CFD tools such as ANSYS Mechanical, CFX/Fluent or STAR-CCM+ is required. Proven expertise across a combination of areas such as mechanical design, strong GD&T fundamentals, stack-up analysis, analytical & computational modeling (FEA/CFD/1-D), testing & experimentation, and materials strongly preferred. Proficiency in using AI tools to accelerate engineering work (e.g. research, scripting/automation, data analysis, documentation), with sound engineering judgment to verify AI-generated results, is a plus. Experience with design and validation of rotodynamic & reciprocating fluid machines (pumps, turbines, compressors etc.) highly desirable. Hands-on experience with testing and experimentation, sensors/transducers, controls/data acquisition highly desirable. Familiarity with engineering standards such as HI/ASME/API/ANSI/ISO etc. Demonstrated ability to lead technical work independently, prioritize across multiple projects, and make sound engineering decisions with limited direct supervision. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Must be willing to work from ERI's India office once it is established; the role will be remote until then. Regular overlap with US Pacific time, typically 2-4 hours in the IST evening, in-office workday adjusted accordingly. Position requires up to 10% travel, including international travel. We are an EOE/AA employer committed to workforce diversity. No recruiters or phone calls.