Director, Process Engineering - Vacaville - Thistle

Description

Overview

TITLE: Director, Process Engineering DEPARTMENT: Supply Chain REPORTS TO: Chief Supply Chain Officer

Who We Are Founded in 2013, Thistle is a food-tech startup empowering our customers to get and stay healthy while improving the sustainability of our food system. We make delicious, ready-to-eat plant-forward meals, snacks, and juices delivered right to our customers' doorsteps. Our convenient subscription service empowers customers to improve their personal and planetary health by incorporating more plants into their diet.

About The Role Reporting directly to the Chief Supply Chain Officer, the Director, Process Engineering is the operational integration partner who turns "how we work" into durable, scalable processes. You will sit at the intersection of our vertically integrated manufacturing and last-mile logistics operations—partnering daily with plant and logistics leaders while also serving as the connective tissue to corporate teams (Product, Engineering, Data, Customer Support, and R&D).

Your remit is to scale Thistle's end-to-end operating system as we grow: reduce variation, codify and govern best-in-class SOPs, build input/output metrics that drive accountability, drive robotics and equipment assessment and implementation, and lead structured programs that increase throughput, capacity, and quality. This role blends hands-on process engineering, rigorous program management, and quality systems leadership. You will be expected to spend meaningful time in facilities and on lines, observing, measuring, diagnosing, and making changes with teams.

How You'll Make a Difference

Strategy & Operating System

• Build and own the Operations Excellence roadmap for Manufacturing + Logistics, translating company growth plans into a sequenced portfolio of programs that increase capacity, reduce cost, and improve customer experience.
• Define OKRs and success metrics for process, quality, and throughput initiatives (e.g., labor efficiency, waste, yield, concessions/credits, OTIF, uptime), and create simple, disciplined operating cadences to review performance and unblock execution.
• Establish a scalable "Thistle Standard Work" system: SOP authoring standards, version control, and auditability across culinary, production, plating, packing, and logistics in partnership with our Program Management team.
• Partner with R&D and Product to create launch playbooks for new SKUs, menu expansion, and personalization, ensuring operational readiness across procurement, prep, cook, plate/pack, labeling, cold chain, and delivery.

Process Engineering, Quality, & Continuous Improvement

• Drive out variation in culinary and production processes by mapping value streams, defining critical-to-quality inputs/outputs, and implementing controls that improve consistency across shifts, sites, and seasons.
• Build granular process capability measurement for key steps (portioning accuracy, plating takt adherence, pack accuracy, seal integrity, label accuracy, scan compliance).
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions (CAPA) for equipment and robotics breakdowns; establish durable countermeasures through standard work, training, visual management, and tooling improvements.
• Implement and scale Lean fundamentals: 5S, line balancing, standardized work, visual management, and daily management routines, so performance is repeatable, and we drive out process variation.
• Reduce ingredient and packaging waste through systematic review of plate/pack line configurations, industrial kitchen design, material flows, and ergonomics; land benchmark practices that maximize yield and minimize rework and scrap.
• Partner closely with Food Safety / FSQA to ensure process changes are compliant with GMPs, SSOPs, HACCP, and audit requirements.

Capacity, Bottleneck, & Capex

• Own robust capacity modeling for manufacturing and logistics: end-to-end throughput by constraint, labor and equipment capacity, utilization, and sensitivity to menu mix and volume growth.
• Conduct bottleneck analysis and drive capacity unlock initiatives (e.g., changeover reduction, queue elimination, staging redesign, pack-out flow improvements).
• Evaluate equipment and automation opportunities, portioning tools, packaging equipment, conveyance, scan/print/apply systems, cold-chain monitoring, building clear ROI cases (cost, quality, safety, throughput, labor), and implementation plans.
• Lead evaluation and implementation of advanced robotics and automation to improve portion accuracy and throughput; ensure pilots have measurable hypotheses, and clean success metrics.
• Partner with Operations leaders to land new equipment into daily work successfully: standard work, maintenance/PM requirements, training, adoption metrics, and entitlement tracking.

Systems Adoption

• Build disciplined program management practices in partnership with our Director, Program Management, to ensure relevant projects and initiatives have clear charters, resourcing, timelines, risk management, stakeholder alignment, and weekly execution cadence.
• Steward software and systems improvements in operational tools (manufacturing execution, inventory, labeling, route/delivery tools, dashboards): define requirements with Ops, partner with Engineering/Data, drive rollout/change management, and verify adoption with measurable leading indicators.
• Create robust "input metrics" and leading indicators that predict outcomes (quality, throughput), drive compliance, and improve performance with data that reveals the highest-return opportunities at the site and shift level. This shifts the organization from reactive firefighting to proactive control.
• Build the operational readiness model for menu personalization and expansion, ensuring configuration complexity is absorbed through systems, line design, and standard work (not informal institutional knowledge).

Logistics Integration & Customer Outcomes

• Partner with Logistics to streamline "perfect delivery" execution: pick accuracy, scan compliance, cold-chain integrity, route readiness, exception reduction, and on-time-in-full (OTIF) performance.

Leadership & Influence

• Lead through influence across manufacturing and logistics leadership teams; align on standards, hold the bar, and support teams in execution with practical tools and on-the-floor partnership.
• Develop the capabilities of supervisors, leads, and managers through training, coaching, and repeatable improvement routines (daily huddles, tiered escalation, standard work audits).