Job Description

DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURAL PROCESS ENGINEERING

Are you looking for an opportunity to own and transform onion, garlic, and parsley operations from field to finished product? Are you excited to solve real-world challenges, build scalable systems, lead high-performing teams, and grow your technical and leadership impact in a hands-on, collaborative environment?

This is for a leader who spends time in the fields, on the plant floor, and inside the process, translating real-world variability into scalable systems that work. You’ll own day-to-day production execution while architecting the processes, workflows, and infrastructure that will carry this operation forward. This is a rare opportunity to drive operational excellence and apply engineering thinking to agricultural complexity to create durable, repeatable systems in a high-variability environment. 

What You’ll Do

• Own and optimize end-to-end production for onion, garlic, and parsley ingredients—from field intake through cleaning, dehydration, milling, and packaging—turning agricultural variability into scalable, repeatable processes.
• Be hands-on in operations, walking fields, working the plant floor, troubleshooting in real time, and translating real-world constraints into engineered solutions.
• Design and implement systems, workflows, and SOPs that improve throughput, consistency, uptime, and operational excellence, using Lean, Six Sigma, and data-driven approaches.
• Build and lead high-performing teams across production, maintenance, and supply chain, while driving food safety, quality, and compliance to FSMA, HACCP, GMP, OSHA, and environmental standards.
• Collaborate on strategic growth, providing execution-informed input on capacity expansion, capital projects, and long-term process design while optimizing equipment performance and preventive maintenance programs.

What You’ll Bring

• Extensive agricultural or food manufacturing experience (10+ years), ideally in dehydrated ingredients, produce, herbs, or root vegetables.
• Proven success in hands-on, high-variability environments, navigating complexity from raw materials, weather, and seasonal fluctuations.
• Process-engineering mindset, skilled in root cause analysis, designing scalable systems, and eliminating recurring operational issues.
• Deep technical and regulatory knowledge, including dehydration processes, crop variability, agricultural supply chains, and FSMA, HACCP, GMP, and operational food safety.
• Strong educational foundation (Bachelor’s in Engineering, Food Science, or related field; advanced degree a plus) and ability to balance day-to-day execution with long-term process architecture.

What You’ll Get

• The opportunity to build and engineer a future-ready agricultural production operation.
• A leadership role where technical judgment and on-the-ground execution matter more than presentations.
• A fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment with meaningful ownership and impact.
• Competitive compensation, benefits, and long-term growth opportunity.

This is more than an operations job — it’s a chance to build a world-class ingredient production system with your vision at the core. If you’re ready to leave your mark on an essential industry, we want to hear from you.

About Sensient: 

Sensient Technologies Corporation is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of colors, flavors, and extracts. Sensient employs advanced technologies at facilities around the world to develop specialty food and beverage systems, cosmetic and pharmaceutical systems, specialty colors, and other specialty and fine chemicals. The Company's customers include major international manufacturers representing most of the world's best-known brands.

• About Sensient Agricultural Ingredients: 

Sensient Agricultural Ingredients is one of the largest producers and distributors in the world of dehydrated onion and garlic products as well as chili powder, paprika, chili pepper and dehydrated vegetables such as parsley, celery, and spinach. These ingredients are used in many of today's popular convenience foods. The Agricultural Ingredients unit is located in Turlock, California.

The salary range for this position is $185,000 - $250,000 USD.  Pay within the range is based on several factors, which may include, but are not limited to, education, work experience, specialized training, and labor market conditions.  In addition to salary, Sensient is proud to offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits program to support the holistic well-being of our employees and their families.  

• SPONSORSHIP: Due to our inability to offer visa sponsorship, we can only consider candidates who are authorized to work in the United States without the need for employment visa sponsorship. 

• RELOCATION: We are unable to offer relocation assistance. The successful candidate will be expected to work at Livingston, CA and must reside in area or be willing to commute. 
• THIRD PARTY AGENCY: Any unsolicited submissions received from recruitment agencies will be considered property of Sensient Technologies, and we will not be liable for any fees or obligations related to those submissions.

Sensient is an Equal Opportunity Employer, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

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