Natural Fiber Welding, Inc. produces a scalable and sustainable universe of peerless high-performance materials created from abundant natural materials. We are driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, innovative ideas, and the desire to commercialize new products from nature. We are a team of scientists, engineers, and business leaders that are inspired to impact the world. We offer competitive salary, paid vacation and sick time, flexible work-life balance, great colleagues and more!

We are growing and are looking for an exceptional material development engineer who can contribute to our exciting and fast-paced organization. This person will be a self-starter and help us develop products that meet the needs of our customers. You will help us expand and refine the NFW rubber & resin based technologies into new products and application spaces. NFW only uses bio-based and mineral inputs for our formulations; your role will help find which ingredients enable the peerless performance for which we are known.

What you will do:

• Develop novel formulations and mixing techniques
• Mix, sheet-out, and mold materials for development and customer samples
• Test your formulations to rapidly guide your material development efforts
• Translate vague and general customer requirements into engineering specifications
• Work will other team members collaboratively to move all development projects forward
• Conduct designed experiments to guide your development work
• Consolidate and report-out results in a timely manner geared to both technical audiences and non-technical audiences

What is expected:

• You will be able to be on your feet up to 8 hours per day
• You will be able to lift 75 lbs (the weight of a bale of rubber)
• You will be able to manage a mill knife (and have the necessary coordination and upper body strength)
• You will work safely and look out for the safety of your colleagues
• You will spend at least 10% of your time reading research literature, trade literature, and books to expand your knowledge of the field and adjacent technical fields
• You will share your findings in regular written and verbal communication with colleagues

What we offer:

• Fun, flexible culture and team
• Competitive salary commensurate with experience
• Health Insurance
• No cost telehealth service
• Paid vacation
• Paid holidays
• Great growth opportunities

What you will bring:

• A Master's degree or equivalent experience  (Bachelors with more than 10 yrs exp, or Masters with 7 years exp) in Materials Science, Polymer Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry (or a related discipline) with an emphasis on polymer science (rubber compounding experience preferred).  PhD with 1-2 years experience is a plus! 
• The ability to think morphologically, i.e. about materials and structure-property relations on multiple size scales
• An inquisitive spirit, always wondering about the “what ifs…”
• Perseverance - good compounding requires many failures
• Mechanical aptitude in the use of basic shop tools