How To Become A Principal Process Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a principal process engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Edoardo Sarda Ph.D.

A process engineer's job is to ensure that systems run smoothly in a production or manufacturing plant. These professionals can work in various industries, from agriculture to petroleum and even pharmaceuticals. They are responsible for designing, executing, controlling, maintaining, and optimizing the processes that run these factories.

Process engineers may design entire processes or augment faulty segments in functional ones. They work continually, ensuring that the processes function as designed. As a result, they oversee the operations of the plant and employees that work there. Process engineers may also have to prepare reports and collate the data gathered from the plants.

Process engineers usually have a bachelor's degree in engineering. They also need advanced degrees in their preferred specialties and accreditation from the engineering board in their state.

What general advice would you give to a principal process engineer?

Edoardo Sarda Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Robotics Engineering, Lake Superior State University

Flexibility has become a key asset for new graduates, due to the current COVID19 pandemic. Fortunately, engineers are still in high demand. Even fresh graduates may need to seek opportunities and accept positions working in areas that were not exactly what they had in mind while in college. Besides, the pandemic has created a reality where specific industries are struggling while others are booming. That will undoubtedly impact the demand for new engineers. Lastly, since the United States took a non-uniform approach to fight the pandemic, where every state is independently deciding how to reopen, leading to some states being stricter than others, in addition to new epicenters forming in different areas of the country at different times, new grads may not necessarily end up in the geographical location they may have originally planned.

ScorePrincipal Process EngineerUS Average

Salary

8.3

Avg. Salary $126,348

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 15.71%

Black or African American 4.33%

Hispanic or Latino 10.61%

Unknown 3.89%

White 65.29%

Gender

female 15.63%

male 84.37%

Age - 41

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 41

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal process engineer

Explore principal process engineer education requirements

Most common principal process engineer degrees

Bachelor's

73.4 %

Master's

18.8 %

Doctorate

4.2 %

Start to develop specific principal process engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Process Engineering	9.37%
Continuous Improvement	6.78%
Engineering Design	5.90%
RF	5.00%
Process Control	4.75%

Complete relevant principal process engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal process engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a principal process engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal process engineer resumes.

Research principal process engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage customer complaint resolution, root cause analysis, maintaining conformance for ISO certification.
Utilize SolidWorks 3D modeling in the development of new designs and components.
Generate detailed manufacturing process descriptions to meet FDA and global documentation requirements for medical device manufacturing.
Develop a method to get AutoCad isometric drawings relevant to relief valve transferred electronically to the relief valve sizing package.

Get principal process engineer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a principal process engineer. The most common roles before becoming a principal process engineer include senior process engineer, process engineer team lead and process engineer lead.

Prepare your principal process engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your principal process engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a principal process engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable principal process engineer resume templates

Build a professional principal process engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your principal process engineer resume.