Lead Facilities Engineer - Wellsite Autonomous Operations

Role Synopsis

The Lead Facilities Engineer – Wellsite Autonomous Operations serves as the single enterprise authority for facilities system, compression, and flow network behavior supporting autonomous and semi‑autonomous wellsite operations. This role is accountable for ensuring that facilities architectures, compression strategies, and surface network designs enable safe, reliable, and value‑optimized autonomous operation at scale, while remaining aligned with enterprise governance, process safety, operating model standards, and lifecycle cost objectives.

The role holds authority within delegated limits for facilities standards supporting autonomy and escalates safety‑critical, system‑level, or cross‑discipline decisions as required. This position converts field‑level facilities innovation and modeling insight into repeatable, governed enterprise advantage.

Scope & Accountability

- Own the enterprise facilities standards that underpin autonomous and semi‑autonomous wellsite operations.

- Serve as the facilities counterpart to Automation, Production Engineering, and Operations leadership within the WAO governance model.

- Ensure facilities system design enables:

- Compression operability across variable operating envelopes

- Stable, predictable flow under transient conditions

- Autonomous control strategies that respect physical system limits

- Economics supporting the impact in terms of discrete value and potential scale

- Act as the authoritative voice on surface network behavior, including gas, liquids, and multiphase flow interactions across pads, trunklines, and compression stations.

Performance Management & Learning

- Partner with WAO leadership to define success criteria, KPIs, and OKRs for facilities‑enabled autonomous operations.

- Establish outcome‑based performance measures tied to:

- Compression availability and unmanned auto restart, remote supported restart, and remote diagnostics for first-visit resolution

- Flow assurance stability under transient operation

- Constraint removal and debottlenecking effectiveness

- Lead or support root cause failure analyses (RCFAs) for material facilities, compression, or surface‑network‑driven events.

- Ensure RCFA outcomes are translated into:

- Updated standards

- Modeling assumptions and constraints

- Deployment guardrails for autonomous operation

Standards & Governance

- Define, steward, and maintain facilities standards supporting WAO, including:

- Compression system control envelopes and operability limits

- Surface network design criteria for autonomous and transient operation

- Facilities integration requirements with automation and control strategies

- Establish clear criteria for:

- Standard application

- Approved deviations

- Required escalation for safety‑critical or value‑material decisions

- Ensure facilities designs are consistent with:

- Process safety and mechanical integrity expectations

- Operability across steady‑state and transient conditions

- Enterprise lifecycle cost and reliability objectives

Experience

Minimum Qualifications

- 12+ years of Facilities Engineering experience in US onshore oil and gas operations.

- Demonstrated enterprise or multi‑asset technical influence.

- Recognized internally as a technical authority in facilities systems, pipeline networks, and compression.

Technical Domain Expertise

- Compression Systems

- Deep expertise in gas compression technologies used in US onshore operations

- Understanding of compressor performance envelopes, turndown limitations, recycle strategies, and failure modes

- Ability to define compression requirements that enable autonomous and semi‑autonomous operation without compromising equipment integrity

- Dynamic & Transient Modeling

- Advanced experience with dynamic modeling of gas and liquid flowline networks

- Ability to evaluate transient behavior during:

- Startups and shutdowns

- Rate changes

- Equipment trips and restarts

- Translate modeling outputs into practical design constraints and operational guardrails

- Surface Network Optimization

- Expertise in integrated well‑pad‑to‑facility‑to‑sales system behavior

- Ability to identify system bottlenecks and constraint propagation under transient conditions

- Application of modeling insight to optimize uptime, minimize instability, and enable scalable autonomy

Value Delivery

- Enable measurable production, uptime, and reliability improvements through facilities designs that support autonomous control.

- Reduce value erosion caused by:

- Compression instability

- Poor transient response

- Misalignment between physical systems and automation logic

- Accelerate replication of proven facilities architectures across business units.

- Eliminate bespoke, non‑scalable facilities designs that limit autonomous performance.

Lessons Learned & Continuous Improvement

- Capture positive and negative outcomes from facilities and compression deployments.

- Convert lessons learned into:

- Updated facilities standards

- Refined modeling assumptions

- Clear deployment constraints for WAO solutions

- Ensure learning velocity outpaces deployment velocity to protect safety and value.

Enterprise Interface & Influence

- Act as the trusted facilities authority for Business Unit teams, Production Engineering, Automation, and Operations leadership.

- Influence outcomes without direct execution ownership.

- Provide data‑based, technically rigorous recommendations to senior leadership.

- Clearly articulate system‑level risk and opportunity arising from facilities and network behavior.

Competencies & Skills

- System‑level thinking across wells, facilities, compression, and surface networks.

- Comfort exercising final technical authority within delegation of authority.

- Disciplined escalation of safety‑critical or system‑critical issues.

- Strong written and verbal communication skills with technical and non‑technical audiences.

How much do we pay (Base) $200,000-$235,000. Note that the pay range listed for this position is a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible base compensation at the time of posting.

Why join us?

At bpx, we support our people to learn and grow in a diverse and challenging environment. We believe that our team is strengthened by diversity. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment in which everyone is respected and treated fairly.

We offer a reward and wellbeing package to enable your work to fit with your life. These can include, but not limited to, access to health, vision, and dental insurance, flexible working schedule, paid time off policy, discretionary annual bonus program, long-term incentive program, and a generous 401(k) matching program.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodations.

Discover your place with us and help our business meet the challenges of reimagining and reinventing the future of energy.