Chief Metallurgist

Are you looking to make your mark and grow your career with a company on the rise? We'd love to have you on our team!

Equinox Gold is a growth-focused gold producer headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, operating a diversified portfolio of high-quality, long-life mines across the Canada, United States, Mexico and Nicaragua. Guided by our core values of integrity, excellence, accountability, and teamwork, we foster a safe, inclusive, and rewarding workplace where a talented, experienced team works together to deliver reliable operations, responsible mining, and long-term value to its shareholders and host communities.

Get in at the ground floor with our South Railroad Project, a construction-ready, open-pit heap leach project located on the world-class Carlin Trend in Nevada, one of the most prolific gold-producing regions on the planet. The project is backed by a completed feasibility study outlining an average of 130,000 ounces of gold per year over the first five years and an initial 10-year mine life. Join us at this pivotal stage and help bring Nevada's next gold mine to life.

As we continue to grow, we are seeking a Chief Metallurgist to join our team. The purpose of this role is to lead, develop, and optimize the metallurgical aspects of our gold recovery processes to ensure the operation delivers safe, efficient, and cost-effective production.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with senior management in the development and execution of site-wide metallurgical strategies that maximize gold recovery and align with business objectives.
• Lead metallurgical input into feasibility studies, detailed engineering, commissioning, and operational ramp-up to reach steady state operations.
• Provide expert guidance on process design, flowsheet optimization, and technology implementation.
• Serve as technical advisor on comminution, heap leach, gold recovery, and refinery performance.
• Monitor KPIs including recovery, grade reconciliation, leach kinetics, reagent consumption, and refinery performance.
• Implement metallurgical accounting and reconciliation systems.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to maximize throughput, recovery, plant availability, and reagent efficiency.
• Conduct metallurgical balancing, performance modeling, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis to ensure stable operation and predictable production.
• Validate and optimize crushing, stacking, leaching, adsorption, elution, electrowinning, and refining circuits.
• Validate and optimize crushing, stacking, leaching, adsorption, electrowinning, and refining circuits.
• Ensure all metallurgical deliverables are completed safely, on time, and within budget.
• Oversee assay laboratory and metallurgical laboratory operations to ensure accuracy, precision, and data integrity.
• Implement robust QA/AC systems and best practices in the lab.
• Lead, mentor, and develop metallurgical engineers, laboratory staff, and technical personnel to build a high-performance, safety-focused team.
• Support regulatory compliance, environmental performance, and sustainability initiatives.
• Collaborate with vendors, consultants, and technology providers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in metallurgical engineering, chemical engineering or similar field required.
• A minimum of 10 years of extractive metallurgy and mineral processing experience required.
• Five or more years of assay and metallurgical laboratory management experience required.
• Experience in heap leach operations, cyanide-based recovery systems, gold and silver recovery circuits and mine-to-mill integration preferred.
• Metallurgical accounting and reconciliation expertise preferred.
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S. for any employer.
• Must possess a valid driver’s license.

At Equinox Gold, our commitment to teamwork means building a workforce that is as diverse as the communities in which we operate. We are committed to an accessible and inclusive recruitment process and welcome applications from all qualified candidates.