Staff Engineer, Hydraulics
Date: Jul 30, 2025
Location: Calgary, AB, CA
Company: Inter Pipeline Ltd.
At Inter Pipeline, we are building a team of innovators and problem solvers with diverse backgrounds and skill sets. We cultivate opportunities to get to know each other better and collaborate more effectively. In every part of our organization, you will find people with a sense of purpose and a shared ethos - motivated, engaged, exploring new ideas and pushing for continuous improvements in everything we do. We believe teamwork is core to our success, and in that spirit you will work closely with leaders and team members. This is a great opportunity to amplify your purpose and contribute to meaningful, challenging work at the forefront of the energy sector.
Bring your passion, your ideas, and let's do this.
Description
We are seeking a technically exceptional Staff Engineer, Hydraulics to join our growing Pipeline Engineering team. This senior technical role will serve as the organizational lead for liquid pipeline hydraulics, supporting a broad range of activities across operations, commercial planning, and project development.
Reporting to the Manager, System Planning & Reliability, the Staff Engineer will be accountable for delivering high-quality steady-state and transient analysis, leading the development and application of hydraulic models and strategies, and ensuring hydraulic work is applied appropriately across a range of use cases – whether to safeguard against overpressure, support operational optimization, or inform commercial and project planning. This is not a people management position, but it requires strong informal leadership, mentorship, and the ability to influence cross-functional decisions.
The Staff Engineer, Hydraulics, is based out of the Inter Pipeline Calgary downtown office. Consideration may be given for the position to be based out of the Inter Pipeline Sherwood Park office, regular travel to Calgary required.
Key Activities and Responsibilities
• Serve as the senior technical authority for Inter Pipeline’s liquid pipeline hydraulics discipline, with deep expertise in steady-state and transient (surge) analysis.
• Develop, maintain, and validate SPS (Synergi Pipeline Simulator) models to accurately represent operational conditions.
• Mentor junior engineers and represent the Hydraulics function in cross-functional and enterprise-wide initiatives, ensuring hydraulic considerations are embedded in operational, commercial, and project-related decision-making.
• Perform hydraulic benchmarking to align models with reality – leveraging operational SCADA data and considering factors like commercial volume commitments, variability in crude specifications, and temperature effects.
• Design and optimize overpressure protection strategies, including surge relief, high pressure shutdowns, valve closure times, and control system logic at both PLC and SCADA levels – balancing safety, throughput, and cost of implementation.
• Engineer and maintain pressure restriction compliance and associated station setpoints in coordination with Pipeline Integrity and Operations Engineering to protect system reliability and asset safety.
• Own and manage pump station shutdown setpoints, including their basis, documentation, and revision process – ensuring alignment between engineering rigour, pipeline safety, and operational flexibility.
• Troubleshoot hydraulic performance and control logic issues related to pump stations, terminals, and line operations – focusing on pressure and flow control and collaborating closely with Operations Engineering, the Control Centre, and Field Operations teams.
• Provide subject matter expertise on Drag Reducing Agents (DRA), including understanding of behavior, injection logic, control challenges, and impact on throughput and hydraulic modeling.
• Conduct hydraulic assessments to support pipeline expansions and new construction, including line sizing, pump station siting, and preliminary pump selection – working closely with Commercial and Project Development teams to ensure technically and economically sound designs.
• Determine fit-for-purpose analysis approaches based on project maturity, risk level, available data, and intended use – ranging from simple hydraulic calculators to detailed simulations.
• Review, authenticate, and stamp the engineering work of other team members, ensuring quality and alignment with professional and regulatory standards.
• Manage and direct external hydraulic consultants as needed to supplement internal capabilities on surge studies, model builds, or technical evaluations.
• Identify and prioritize gaps in hydraulic model coverage or fidelity – triaging improvements based on system risk, business needs, and performance impact
• Champion improvements to how hydraulic modeling and analysis are performed, seeking opportunities to raise quality, accuracy, expediency, safety, and consistency across the team.
• Develop and maintain model standards, standardized workflows, documentation protocols, and validation processes to ensure consistency and traceability of assumptions, inputs, and outputs.
• Ensure strong model and documentation hygiene, including version control, configuration management, and clarity of assumptions.
• Promote hydraulic literacy across the organization by creating accessible tools, visualizations, and reference material for non-specialists.
Education, Skills and Experience
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Chemical, Mechanical, or Process preferred)
• Professional Engineer (P.Eng) registered with APEGA
• Minimum 10 years of experience in pipeline engineering, with at least 5 years specializing in hydrocarbon liquid pipeline hydraulics.
• Strong proficiency in SPS (Synergi Pipeline Simulator) is required. Experience with AFT Fathom/Impulse, PipeSim, or equivalent tools is an asset
• Ability to interpret SCADA data and apply insights to hydraulic troubleshooting and model validation
• Working knowledge of CSA Z662, ASME, and related pipeline standards
• Competency with a range of hydraulic tools – including simulation software, simple calculators, and system curve analysis
Hours
Full time, permanent
As this position is identified as security sensitive, employment of a final candidate will be conditional upon completion of pre-employment credential verification and criminal background check assessment with satisfactory results.
Inter Pipeline recognizes the importance of properly rewarding our employees by offering attractive employee benefits. Please visit our “working with us” page to learn about the compensation and benefits offerings Working Here | Inter Pipeline
While diversity is a fact, inclusion is the act of recognizing the value of our differences and leveraging them for the betterment of our organization. At Inter Pipeline, we are dedicated to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that values, represents, and supports the communities in which we work. We are committed to maintaining a respectful workplace and we are building a culture that supports the diverse needs of our employees. We welcome applications from all individuals including those who are Indigenous, racialized, of varied abilities and ethnicities, members of gender and sexually diverse communities, as well as with any other dimension of diversity.
