Chemical Engineer, Reaction and Process Development
San Francisco, CA
Full Time
Mid Level
Chemical Engineer, Reaction and Process Development (Senior and above)
About Ammobia
Ammobia is on a mission to revolutionize the ammonia industry. We are a seed-stage startup developing Haber Bosch 2.0 – a next-generation ammonia synthesis process enabling cost-effective, clean ammonia production.
Until now, ammonia production has been a highly polluting, steady-state, high inertia process. We are building in new regimes of physics and plant design that require dynamic processes, especially for ammonia production from intermittent renewable energy sources. Clean ammonia will support ammonia’s growing role in our decarbonized world, tackling some of the most difficult to abate sectors including chemicals, fertilizers, and heavy-duty transportation. We are supported by leading climate tech organizations including Starlight Ventures, the US Department of Energy, Collaborative Fund, Third Derivative, Forbes 30u30, and more.
Job Description
Ammobia is seeking a motivated and creative Chemical Engineer to develop, and optimize, and scale up our ammonia production process. You will work on a broad variety of projects including but not limited to lab scale reaction engineering, plant scale process design, pilot plant development, and active materials manufacturing. There is significant opportunity to grow your role alongside the company. Responsibilities may include:
About Ammobia
Ammobia is on a mission to revolutionize the ammonia industry. We are a seed-stage startup developing Haber Bosch 2.0 – a next-generation ammonia synthesis process enabling cost-effective, clean ammonia production.
Until now, ammonia production has been a highly polluting, steady-state, high inertia process. We are building in new regimes of physics and plant design that require dynamic processes, especially for ammonia production from intermittent renewable energy sources. Clean ammonia will support ammonia’s growing role in our decarbonized world, tackling some of the most difficult to abate sectors including chemicals, fertilizers, and heavy-duty transportation. We are supported by leading climate tech organizations including Starlight Ventures, the US Department of Energy, Collaborative Fund, Third Derivative, Forbes 30u30, and more.
Job Description
Ammobia is seeking a motivated and creative Chemical Engineer to develop, and optimize, and scale up our ammonia production process. You will work on a broad variety of projects including but not limited to lab scale reaction engineering, plant scale process design, pilot plant development, and active materials manufacturing. There is significant opportunity to grow your role alongside the company. Responsibilities may include:
- Develop processes at the bench and pilot scales, through experimental and/or model/simulation-based development
- Perform test engineering at bench and pilot scales: specify, build, and operate equipment for chemical processing, materials manufacturing, and more
- Design, analyze, and optimize experiments and processes
- Optimize and develop composite active materials for catalysis and separation
- Integrate experimental and model learnings into plant design at increasing scales
- Characterize, manufacture, and scale up active materials for catalysis and gas separations
Who you are
You are a generalist, R&D and scaleup oriented chemical engineer with a strong bias towards action and rapid iteration. You are a creative, data driven problem solver who works from first principles. You enjoy fast paced, creative, and collaborative work and you thrive with high levels of autonomy and ownership. You may or may not be from the chemicals industry; battery, aerospace, or other hard-tech industries are highly relevant. You may or may not have a chemical engineering degree.
Successful applicants will have most of the following
- 3+ years’ experience in a relevant industrial setting (5+ preferred)
- Demonstrated expertise in process development and experimental design
- Demonstrated ability to drive development programs based on insights from models and experiment
- Demonstrated expertise in data analysis, especially for time-series data from dynamic processes, e.g. with Python, MATLAB, or similar
- Intuitive understanding of thermodynamics, kinetics, heat and mass transport
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Self-motivated, proactive, and able to work both independently and collaboratively
- Passion for sustainability and excitement about working at an early-stage start-up
- Hands on experience in a startup
Nice-to-have
- Demonstrated experience in reaction engineering, heterogeneous catalysis
- Hands on experience designing, building, and maintain research and pilot scale chemical processing equipment
- Demonstrated experience in reactor and/or process modeling, eg in Aspen, gPROMS, MATLAB, COMSOL, or similar
- Demonstrated experience in porous materials characterization, such as BET, SEM, TGA etc
- Experience in gas separations, PSA, TSA, membrane, distillation, or similar
- Experience in pilot scale chemical processing
- Experience in ammonia synthesis, cracking, or separations
- Experience in porous material synthesis and manufacturing
Who we are
We are a small and passionate team of scientists and engineers. We value teamwork, accountability, open communication, and rapid iteration. We emphasize career growth, mutual feedback, and a fun and exciting working environment. Check out ammobia.co/careers for our full values statement and ammobia.co/team to learn more about us.
The position is full-time and in-person in San Francisco, CA. Compensation and job title will be commensurate with experience.
Benefits include:
- Competitive equity grants
- Healthcare, dental, vision, life insurance, 401k
- Gym benefit
- Regular team social events
- Paid time off, including closure between Christmas and New Years
Apply for this position
Required*