Last updated: June 22, 2026
Engineering Staffing in Houston, TX
KORE1 places mechanical, electrical, process, and controls engineers across Houston’s energy, petrochemical, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing employers. Discipline-specialist recruiters, not generalists. The difference shows up fast on the Gulf Coast.
2nd largest petrochemical complex on earth
17-day average fill
Since 2010
KORE1 is an engineering staffing agency in Houston that places mechanical, electrical, process, and controls engineers across energy, petrochemicals, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing. We run contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire searches built around Houston’s real disciplines.
Why Houston Engineering Hiring Is Its Own Game
Houston doesn’t hire engineers the way Austin or Dallas does. The work here is upstream and downstream energy, petrochemical process units along the Ship Channel, LNG export trains on the coast, and ground-systems engineering out at Clear Lake. A process engineer from specialty chemicals isn’t a drop-in for one from refining, and an aerospace systems integrator reads an automotive resume very differently than a recruiter flown in from out of state. KORE1 staffs the engineering hub of our national engineering practice for exactly this kind of city.
- Treats “engineer” as one keyword and sorts on it
- Submits upstream candidates for downstream roles, and vice versa
- Misses the PSM, API, and NEC context that decides plant fit
- Ships out-of-state resumes from people who won’t relocate to the Gulf Coast
- Recruiters who know mechanical, electrical, and process work as separate crafts
- Active candidate relationships in the Energy Corridor, Deer Park, and Clear Lake
- Screening tuned to Houston’s real regulatory and safety load
- 30, 60, and 90-day check-ins on every engineer we place
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro carries one of the largest concentrations of architecture and engineering employment in the country, and a big share of those openings chase domain experience that never shows up cleanly on a job board. What does that look like in practice? A reliability engineer who has actually run a refinery turnaround. A controls engineer who can tell a Rockwell shop from a Siemens shop before the first interview. A petroleum engineer who knows the difference between a Permian completion and a deepwater one. We recruit for that specificity, because in Houston the wrong-but-close hire is the expensive one.
Energy, Refining, and Process Engineering
This is the core of Houston engineering. It always has been.
Upstream and downstream energy. Petrochemicals from Pasadena to Bayport. LNG trains at Freeport. The capital projects and turnarounds that keep the Gulf Coast running. We place process, chemical, mechanical, controls, and reliability engineers into the operators, EPC firms, and OEMs that actually build and maintain this infrastructure, from contract turnaround crews to permanent plant engineering teams. Our recruiters speak the language of process safety management, API standards, and the difference between a brownfield revamp and a greenfield build.
Aerospace, Systems, and Advanced Manufacturing
Clear Lake is an engineering market most recruiters quietly skip.
Johnson Space Center and its surrounding prime contractors pull from a talent pool that has almost nothing to do with the refineries 30 miles north, and a recruiter who can’t tell mission-support engineering from plant engineering will burn everyone’s first two weeks on submittals that were never going to fit. Ground systems. Mission support. Systems and integration engineering. We also cover advanced manufacturing out toward Katy and the precision machining shops that feed both aerospace and energy. Some of this work is cleared or clearable, and we’re honest about the timelines that come with it. For the medical-device side of Houston engineering, our biomedical engineering practice supports the Texas Medical Center and its research institutions.
Every Discipline Maps to a Different Houston
The same job title means different things in different parts of this city. Here’s how we map each discipline to where it actually works across the metro, from the crackers and refineries on the Ship Channel to the systems-engineering programs out at Clear Lake, with links to the specialty pages where you can go deeper.
Where Houston Engineers Actually Work
Energy & Oil & Gas
Houston isn’t just an energy city. It is the energy city.
- ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, LyondellBasell
- Upstream, midstream, downstream, and the renewables build-out
- Process, mechanical, controls, and reliability engineers
The Greater Houston Partnership tracks the cluster’s engineering workforce.
Petrochemicals & the Ship Channel
The second-largest petrochemical complex on the planet. Literal.
- Dow, INEOS, Celanese, BASF, and dozens of operators
- Process safety, plant controls, turnaround and reliability work
- Contract surge crews and permanent plant engineering teams
See our contract-to-hire staffing for project-driven plant work.
Aerospace & NASA
Clear Lake runs on a talent pool nobody else recruits against.
- Johnson Space Center and its prime contractors
- Systems, ground systems, and mission support engineering
- Cleared and clearable technical talent
We also place engineering project managers for integration programs.
EPC & Capital Projects
Houston is the engineering and construction capital of U.S. energy.
- KBR, Quanta Services, and the global EPC firms with Gulf Coast offices
- Project, design, and discipline-lead engineers
- FEED, detailed design, and construction support phases
For defined-scope work, we offer project-based staffing.
Advanced Manufacturing
Precision shops feed both energy and aerospace out here.
- Equipment OEMs, machining, fabrication, and automation
- Manufacturing, quality, and design engineers
- Roles that straddle the energy and aerospace supply chains
Related hourly roles run through our light industrial staffing.
Medical Device & TMC
The largest medical complex in the world needs engineers too.
- Texas Medical Center research and device development
- Biomedical, mechanical, and quality engineers
- Facilities and reliability work across hospital campuses
Our biomedical engineering staffing serves the TMC directly.
Where We Place Engineers Across Greater Houston
We cover the full Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro and the industrial corridors that surround it. Each submarket carries its own kind of engineering demand, and our recruiters know the commute tolerances, pay bands, and plant cultures that move candidates between them.
Deer Park
Pasadena
Baytown
Texas City
Clear Lake
Freeport
Sugar Land
Katy
The Woodlands
Galveston
Pearland
How We Fill Engineering Roles in Houston
Scope the Real Role
A conversation about the unit, the project phase, and the standards the work runs under. PSM exposure, API codes, the DCS platform, the clearance requirement. The details that decide who actually fits, not the ones on the job req.
Source the Gulf Coast
Houston-specific engineering networks built over years of placements. Energy Corridor process engineers. Clear Lake systems talent. The reliability engineers who travel for turnaround season. We know who moves, who won’t, and who is quietly listening.
Screen for Fit
Technical screening, reference checks, and background verification tuned to what predicts success on a Houston plant or program. We submit engineers who are qualified and who want this specific role. Not the nearest matching title.
Place and Support
We check in at 30, 60, and 90 days on every placement. If something isn’t working, we fix it. Our 92 percent retention rate means replacements are rare, and the guarantee is still there if you need it.
Contract, Contract-to-Hire, and Direct Hire Engineers
Engineering work in Houston rarely fits one model. A turnaround needs contractors next month. A capital project needs a discipline lead for 18 months. A growing plant needs a permanent reliability engineer who’ll still be there in five years. Most of our clients use more than one.
Contract Engineering
Turnaround season, capital projects, surge capacity at the plant. We handle payroll, benefits, workers comp, and per-diem logistics so your team stays on the engineering. Roll on, roll off, no permanent headcount.
Contract-to-Hire
Our most popular model for mid-level engineering roles in Houston. You see real output on a real unit before you commit. Performance data beats a whiteboard session every time.
Direct Hire
For roles where you know exactly what you need. Our direct hire practice runs the full search from sourcing through offer. Discipline leads, senior process engineers, engineering managers.
Part of KORE1’s National Engineering Network
Houston is one piece of KORE1’s footprint. Companies running engineering across multiple sites work with us because we staff every market from the same team with the same standards, which means no juggling three agencies, no inconsistent bill rates, and no finger-pointing when a shared requisition stalls between regions. Need the general Houston picture across IT, finance, and industrial roles? See our Houston staffing agency page. Here’s the engineering view of our nearby markets.
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Telecom, semiconductors, defense, and a deep manufacturing base across the metro, plus the aerospace cluster in Fort Worth. Our closest Texas market and a frequent partner on multi-site engineering work.
Austin, TX
Semiconductors, hardware, and a growing advanced-manufacturing presence. Austin teams partner often with Houston clients running distributed engineering or shared-services design groups.
San Antonio, TX
Aerospace maintenance, defense, and manufacturing across South Texas. A common partner market for Houston clients with operations spread across the Texas Triangle.
New Orleans, LA
Gulf Coast energy, maritime, shipbuilding, and petrochemical engineering east of Houston. A natural extension for clients with operations stretching along the coast toward the Mississippi.
Cross-Vertical in Houston
Engineering rarely hires alone. We also cover IT staffing and accounting and finance for the same Houston employers.
Houston, TX
Energy, petrochemicals, aerospace, and advanced-manufacturing engineering across the Gulf Coast. You are here.
Common Questions About Engineering Staffing in Houston
What does an engineering staffing agency in Houston charge?
For direct hire engineering placements, fees typically run 15 to 25 percent of the candidate’s first-year salary, depending on discipline and search difficulty. For contract and turnaround work, you pay a bill rate that covers wages plus payroll taxes, benefits, workers comp, and our fee. We quote it in writing before any search starts. No surprises after the fact.
How fast can KORE1 fill an engineering role in Houston?
Common roles often fill in one to two weeks from our pre-screened Gulf Coast candidate pools. Specialized process safety, controls, or senior reliability engineers usually take two to four weeks. Cleared aerospace roles at Clear Lake can run longer, and we tell you that up front. Our average time to fill across all placements is 17 days.
Which engineering disciplines do you recruit for?
We staff mechanical, electrical, process, chemical, controls and instrumentation, reliability and maintenance, petroleum, project, and systems engineering. In Houston that spans refining, petrochemicals, LNG, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing. Our dedicated mechanical and electrical engineering practices go deeper on those two.
Do you place contract engineers for plant turnarounds?
Yes. Turnaround and capital-project staffing is one of the most common reasons Houston operators and EPC firms call us. We run contract and contract-to-hire crews for process, mechanical, controls, and reliability work, and we handle the payroll, per-diem, and compliance logistics that come with project labor.
What makes Houston engineering hiring different from other markets?
Domain specialization. Energy, petrochemicals, and aerospace each draw from separate candidate pools that barely overlap, and the regulatory and safety context, from process safety management to the codes a given unit runs under, decides fit far more than the job title ever does. A process engineer from refining isn’t interchangeable with one from specialty chemicals. National recruiters who treat the city as one market miss that distinction constantly.
Can you recruit cleared or aerospace engineers near Clear Lake?
We do. The Johnson Space Center ecosystem and its prime contractors run on systems, ground-systems, and mission-support engineering, and a chunk of that work is cleared or clearable. Those searches take longer than a standard plant role, and we’re honest about the timeline before you commit to it.
Do you staff EPC firms and energy operators directly?
Yes. We place project, design, and discipline-lead engineers into the EPC firms, energy majors, and petrochemical operators across the Gulf Coast, through every phase from FEED to detailed design to construction support. For defined-scope engagements we also offer project-based staffing with a fixed deliverable.
What happens if an engineering placement doesn’t work out?
Every placement carries a guarantee period, and we run structured 30, 60, and 90-day check-ins to catch problems early. If a placement genuinely isn’t working, we replace the engineer at no additional cost. Our 92 percent retention rate means that’s rare, but the guarantee exists regardless.
Ready to Build Your Houston Engineering Team?
Whether you need one process engineer for a turnaround or a full discipline team for a capital project, KORE1 has the Houston engineering network to deliver. Tell us about the role and we’ll get to work.