[Hiring] Senior Process Engineer @Aether Biomachines

Role Description

Aether’s production processes have been developed and scaled by the R&D and scale-up teams, and are now moving to contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs). This role takes those processes and makes them run reliably, repeatably, and economically at commercial scale.

You’ll be the engineer who leads technology transfer to our CMO partners. Once production is running, you’ll stay with it, stabilizing the process and improving it continuously. You’ll work directly with CMO engineering teams and in close partnership with Aether’s R&D and quality functions. This is one of the first hires in a new manufacturing organization, so the standards you set will become the foundation the function grows on.

What you’ll do

• Lead technology transfer of scaled-up processes from Aether’s internal teams to CMOs, including the transfer package, process descriptions, batch records, and bills of materials.
• Plan and run scale-up through the first commercial production runs, demonstrating that each process can support high-volume manufacturing.
• Define critical process parameters and in-process controls, together with R&D and quality.
• Set up process monitoring and trend data across production batches to stabilize the process and catch drift early.
• Lead troubleshooting and root cause analysis for yield, quality, and throughput issues in partnership with quality, and drive corrective actions with CMO engineers.
• Build and run improvement programs targeting yield, cycle time, and cost.
• Conduct process hazard analyses and risk assessments as processes change.

Qualifications

• BS in chemical engineering or a closely related field.
• 5+ years of process engineering experience in chemical, polymer, or materials manufacturing.
• Hands-on experience leading tech transfer and scale-up into a production environment, preferably at a contract manufacturer or with outsourced production.
• The ability to work independently at a partner site and hold your own with experienced manufacturing teams.
• A structured, data-driven approach to solving technical problems.
• Willingness to travel about 30% of the time.

Requirements

• Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt (nice to have).
• Experience leading HAZOP or PHA studies (nice to have).
• Experience with polymer synthesis or compounding (nice to have).

Benefits

• The pay range for this role is $115,000 to $175,000 per year plus equity, with final compensation based on skills and experience.

Company Description

Aether engineers enzymes and uses them to make materials that are difficult or impossible to produce any other way. The long-term goal is to manufacture more or less anything, quickly and cheaply, anywhere, by drawing on a few billion years of evolution rather than inventing the chemistry from scratch. Today that work pays for itself through advanced print materials. These are shipping into defense and unmanned systems, with revenue and strong customer feedback. Aether is a Series A company that has raised a little over $60M, with a small team based in the San Francisco Bay Area.