Sr Research Associate

About Pow.bio

Founded by a UC Berkeley Ph.D. graduate and a SynBio veteran, Pow.bio is revolutionizing the $500B biomanufacturing market by building a self-driving fermenter platform that enables cost-effective scale-up solutions across a wide array of strains, organisms, and products.

About the Position:

We are seeking an experienced, motivated Sr Research Associate to join our growing organization. As a member of the fermentation team, you will play a key role in developing and improving current fermentation practices, running and operating our fermentation vessels with little or no supervision, and communicating experimental results both internally and externally. This position will also support our clients in leading the design and execution of fermentation runs, and completing and communicating data analyses and results. You will also aid in internal R&D efforts to design, build and troubleshoot continuous manufacturing platforms across processes and product classes.

Responsibilities:

• Assist in fermentations and downstream recovery processes for a wide range of microbes.

• Aid process development campaigns for fed-batch and continuous fermentation processes.

• Support fermentation scale-up projects.

• Communicate, deliver results to, and build meaningful rapport with clients.

• Assist in machine learning and data science efforts to solve a global scientific problem.

• Troubleshoot dynamic and interesting scientific problems in a supportive team.

Qualifications:

• BS + 3 years of relevant industry experience or MS + 1 years of relevant industry experience. Degree is in chemical engineering, biological engineering, microbiology or closely related discipline.

• Hands-on experience setting up and running microbial fermentations at bench and pilot-plant scale.

• Ability to independently troubleshoot bench and pilot scale reactors.

• Effective communication skills for presenting to team members as well as clients in a professional and thoughtful manner.

• Ability to thrive in a dynamic and collaborative work environment.

• Strong knowledge of microbiology, microbial physiology, and cellular metabolism.

• Strong organization and time-management skills with an attention to detail.

• Ability to work independently on experimental set up and execution.

• Fluency in statistical methods and data manipulation.

• Strong organization and time-management skills with an attention to detail.

• Must be able to lift up to 35lbs

Desired Skills:

• Hands-on experience with bench-scale and pilot-scale downstream processing equipment (disc-stack centrifuge, column chromatography, TFF, lyophilizer, etc.).

• Competencies

• Python

• JMP

• Fermenter control software, e.g. MFCS, FermWorks, DeltaV

• HPLC, GC, and MS

• Design of experiment (DoE) methodology

• Understanding of fermentation trends

This position offers a 4 day work week, typically Wednesday - Saturday. We reasonably expect this role's salary to fall within the range of $90,000 - $110,000. Individual compensation is based on various factors, including experience, education, skillset, and geographic location. This range may be adjusted as needed.