Lead Planning & Optimization Advisor/Engineer

An exciting career awaits you

At MPC, we’re committed to being a great place to work – one that welcomes new ideas, encourages diverse perspectives, develops our people, and fosters a collaborative team environment.

Position Summary

The Value Chain Optimization (VCO) team has an opening for a Cross-Regional Planning & Optimization Advisor/Engineer. The Cross-Regional Planning & Optimization Advisor/Engineer plays a critical role in enabling enterprise-wide value optimization by aligning commercial strategy, operational constraints, and market dynamics across multiple regions. Reporting to the Cross Regional Optimization Director, this role operates at the intersection of planning, logistics, and commercial teams to drive consistent, economically optimized decision-making across the value chain.

This individual serves as a highly collaborative and energetic integrator, partnering closely with logistics and commercial stakeholders. They facilitate cross-regional alignment, communicate complex concepts in a clear and actionable way, and influence outcomes across diverse stakeholder groups without direct authority.

Leveraging strong analytical skills and hands-on experience with linear programming models, including PIMS, the Cross-Regional Planning & Optimization Engineer evaluates scenarios, validates plans, and identifies opportunities to improve value capture across the system. They translate optimization outputs into actionable insights while ensuring consistency in how models are applied and embedded into planning and execution processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Leads development of optimized regional and cross-regional production plans using LP models, balancing operational constraints, market conditions, and value chain opportunities across multiple refineries.
• Serves as a subject matter expert in refinery planning and optimization, applying broad knowledge of refinery operations, economics, and market dynamics across multiple refineries and value chain functions.
• Provides technical leadership for LP model development and optimization, challenging assumptions, refining and regional constraints, and ensuring models accurately reflect business and operational realities.
• Drives development of regional and cross-regional optimization strategies, aligning stakeholders to address constraints, capture value opportunities, and maximize value chain performance.
• Guides complex scenario and sensitivity analyses to support critical planning decisions, evaluate risks, and optimize performance.
• Leads advanced performance assessments, backcast analyses, and scenario evaluations to identify systemic gaps and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Leads collaboration across Operations, Commercial, Logistics, and Planning organizations to align assumptions, operating strategies, and optimization recommendations.
• Leads complex planning and optimization initiatives, mentors' other advisors, and advances planning and optimization capabilities across the organization.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering required. A Bachelor's degree in another field may be considered with five (5) years of experience in refinery planning, optimization, value chain, operations, commercial, logistics or related technical experience required.
• Four (4) years of refinery planning, optimization, value chain analysis, operations, commercial, logistics, or related experience required.
• Aspen PIMS linear programming user background preferred.

Skills

• Analytical Thinking: Strong problem-solving skills to identify architectural challenges, analyze requirements, evaluate options, and propose effective solutions
• Building Partnerships: Developing and leveraging relationships within and across work groups to achieve results.
• Business Acumen: Applies knowledge of MPC’s business, industry and the marketplace to advance the organization’s goals. Makes decisions and recommendations clearly linked to MPC’s strategy.
• Business Domain Knowledge: Understanding of business processes, industry trends, and market dynamics to provide relevant and actionable insights for strategic decision-making.
• Commodity Market Analysis: Applies knowledge of commodity markets, price dynamics, and supply-demand fundamentals to inform planning, optimization, and commercial decision-making.
• Continuous Improvement Mindset: Identifies and leads opportunities for continuous improvement and value creation, both incremental and largescale.
• Data Analysis: Data Analysis is the process of identifying, evaluating, interpreting and organizing data so that it can be used for business decisions. It includes sorting through data to identify patterns and establish relationships.
• Decision Support Analytics: Leverages analytics, reporting, and decision frameworks to generate insights, evaluate alternatives, and support informed, data-driven decision-making.
• Influencing Others: The ability to garner support for initiatives by gaining the respect of others and inspiring trust and confidence.
• Integrated Planning & Optimization: Designs and manages integrated planning processes that align supply, demand, and operational constraints to optimize value across the enterprise value chain.
• Metrics Management: The process of monitoring performance indicators that demonstrate how effectively a unit/ business/ function/ company is achieving key objectives.
• Optimization Modeling: Applies optimization models and quantitative techniques to evaluate scenarios, improve system performance, and support complex operational and commercial decisions
• Scenario Planning: Design and evaluate alternative future states to stress-test strategies and inform resilient decision-making.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Build alignment across internal and external stakeholders to support shared objectives.
• Systems Thinking: The ability to analyze complex systems and understand their interdependencies, considering both technical and business aspects, to develop comprehensive and scalable architectures.

As an energy industry leader, our career opportunities fuel personal and professional growth.

Location:

Findlay, Ohio

Job Requisition ID:

00025125

Pay Min/Max:

$162,700.00 - $243,800.00 Salary

Grade:

14

Location Address:

539 S Main St

Additional locations:

Anacortes, Washington, Canton, Ohio, Carson, California, Catlettsburg, Kentucky, Detroit, Michigan, Dickinson, North Dakota, El Paso, Texas, Garyville, Louisiana, Houston, Texas, Kenai, Alaska, Mandan, North Dakota, Martinez, California, Robinson, Illinois, Salt Lake City, Utah, San Antonio, Texas, St Paul Park, Minnesota, Texas City, Texas, Wilmington, California

Education:

Bachelors (Required)

Employee Group:

Full time

Employee Subgroup:

Regular

Marathon Petroleum Company LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer and gives consideration for employment to qualified applicants without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, reproductive health decision-making, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition or AIDS/HIV status, ancestry, national origin, genetic information, military, veteran status, marital status, citizenship  or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.  If you would like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant, click here.

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process at Marathon Petroleum LP, please contact our Human Resources Department at [email protected]. Please specify the reasonable accommodation you are requesting, along with the job posting number in which you may be interested. A Human Resources representative will review your request and contact you to discuss a reasonable accommodation. Marathon Petroleum offers a total rewards program which includes, but is not limited to, access to health, vision, and dental insurance, paid time off, 401k matching program, paid parental leave, and educational reimbursement. Detailed benefit information is available at mympcbenefits.com. The hired candidate will also be eligible for a discretionary company-sponsored annual bonus program.
 
Equal Opportunity Employer: Veteran / Disability

We will consider all qualified Applicants for employment, including those with arrest or conviction records, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws. In reviewing criminal history in connection with a conditional offer of employment, Marathon will consider the key responsibilities of the role.