Lead Process Engineer - Scale-Up and Manufacturing

Help Build the Future of a Global Industry

A&B Smart Materials is an Oxford University–based materials science venture developing bio-based and/or biodegradable superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) to replace today’s fossil-based plastics.

SAPs are the “magic-like” absorbent cores inside diapers, menstrual pads and incontinence products, and the “water-storage crystals” that help soil retain moisture in agriculture. Today’s SAPs are persistent plastics, and regulatory pressure, consumer demand and the scale of the microplastics crisis are making sustainable alternatives increasingly urgent.

Our goal is simple and ambitious: to replace the synthetic superabsorbents that dominate a $9B market today, expected to reach $17B by 2035, with materials that achieve the essential trifecta of top performance, competitive pricing and large-scale manufacturability. This is a generational opportunity to reinvent an essential material and make sustainable SAPs the new standard.

Why A&B Smart Materials?

We recently closed a heavily oversubscribed $2M pre-seed round , backed by an exceptional group of investors including Sake Bosch, caesar., Living Hope VC, Archipelago Ventures, Triple Impact Ventures, Cranfield University Seed Fund and Oxford Seed Fund , alongside leading business angels from the Cambridge Capital Group and Oxford Innovation Finance.

A&B Smart Materials was named in the UK Startups , won the Planet Positive Award at MRE 2026 , and one of our founders has been recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30 . We are supported by Chemstars, the EarthScale Accelerator and the Green Tech Legal Collaborative .

We have also signed a deal with one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Achieving this at our stage is an exceptional milestone and a strong validation of our technology, team and commercial momentum.

Our advisors include the former Managing Director of the world’s largest superabsorbent polymer company, alongside other world-class leaders with deep experience across SAPs, hygiene, chemical manufacturing and agriculture.

The Opportunity

We are hiring our first process engineer : the person who will take a superabsorbent polymer that works today at laboratory scale and establish how it can be made reliably, reproducibly and affordably at pilot scale and beyond.

This is a hands‑on, on‑site role at the point where chemistry meets manufacturing. Working directly with our CEO and CTO, you will run our material at pilot scale, produce the quantities our commercial partners need for their trials, and feed manufacturability and cost constraints back into the research programme before the chemistry is locked in.

Our formulations are still in active development and we are scaling at the same time. That combination is demanding, and it is exactly why this role matters. You will own the techno‑economic picture that tells the research team which processes are worth pursuing, and you will be the person who says early and with evidence which steps in our current route will not survive scale.

This is a startup, so you will wear several hats. Alongside the process work, you will source input materials, model our process economics, select and manage toll manufacturers and, in time, help specify and build our own pilot and production plants. We also expect you to be comfortable stepping into commercial conversations, because at our stage the technical and commercial questions are the same questions.

What You Will Do

• Own the techno‑economic analysis. Build and defend the cost and process models – mass and energy balances, yields, utilities, capital and operating costs from laboratory batch through pilot to full production volume – that tell the R&D team which routes are worth pursuing and give them a cost ceiling to design against, not performance targets alone.
• Own raw material sourcing intelligence. Understand which grades of our input materials exist, what they cost, who supplies them, at what volume and in which geographies, and feed that reality back into formulation choices.
• Run and develop our process at pilot scale. Execute batches, establish and document operating windows, improve yield and reproducibility, and produce material to specification for internal testing and partner trials.
• Own the scale‑up assessment of our chemistry. Identify the steps in the current route that will not survive scale, quantify the risk, and propose alternatives to the science team early enough to matter.
• Develop specifications and quality systems. Define analytical and QC methods, in‑process controls, batch records and product specifications suitable for supply to industrial customers and their audits.
• Own process safety for what we operate. Risk assessment, COSHH, safe handling of reagents, solvents and combustible dusts, and the safe operation of our pilot equipment.
• Lead technology transfer and select tollers. Prepare the technical package required to run our process on a third party’s equipment, assess and select toll manufacturers, and lead trials at partner sites.
• Drive the manufacturing route decision. Assess candidate partners, sites and equipment, and provide the technical and economic basis for how we produce at commercial scale – and specify, source and commission the pilot and production equipment that follows.
• Support the commercial team. Be the technical voice with customers, partners and suppliers – answering manufacturability questions, standing behind our cost and capacity claims, supporting business development, sourcing and supply discussions, and contributing the scale‑up data, timelines and costings behind grant applications and investor reporting.
• Be hands‑on in the labs . Get on the bench alongside the science team when it helps – running chemistry, supporting formulation and scale‑up experiments, and troubleshooting batches yourself rather than directing from a distance.
• Build the function. Recruit and lead process engineers and technicians as the company grows, and capture process know‑how as defensible intellectual property.

What We Are Looking For

We care more about what you have actually built, scaled and delivered than about a prescribed number of years. This role calls for someone who has already done it: you have taken chemical processes out of the laboratory and made them work at industrial scale, on industrial equipment, to industrial standards. We care less about years served than about the processes you have personally scaled and the plants they now run in – but the industrial scale‑up experience itself is not optional.

You should bring a degree in chemical engineering, chemistry, materials chemistry or a closely related discipline, disciplined documentation habits, and the ability to work safely with hazardous materials and to write and apply risk assessments.

SAP experience is a major advantage

SAP engineering experience is the strongest advantage a candidate can bring; comparable materials are the next best thing. We particularly value:

• SAP process development, production, scale‑up or manufacturing engineering, across conventional, bio‑based, biodegradable or otherwise sustainable technologies.
• Hydrogels, cellulose ethers, starch derivatives, hydrocolloids, polyacrylates or comparable specialty polymers.
• Working for or alongside a major SAP producer, chemical manufacturer, hygiene or agricultural business, and familiarity with their quality and regulatory expectations.

Proven industrial scale‑up experience (required): You should have taken at least one chemical process from laboratory or pilot scale into industrial production – larger equipment, industrial volumes, real operating conditions and real commercial consequences:

• A significant, named role in one or more scale‑ups that reached industrial production – close enough to the centre of it to know what the hard parts were, and able to talk us through the process, the equipment and the volumes.
• Hands‑on wet chemical processing at pilot and industrial scale (from order of 20–50 kg per batch, jacketed reactors or similar, through to full production batches) and downstream solids handling – drying, milling, sieving.
• Technology transfer to a third party or auditing external sites; capital cost estimation, equipment procurement and commissioning.

Commercial judgement is part of the job

We want someone who thinks in $/kg and in what a customer will accept, not only in yield and conversion:

• Building cost of goods and techno‑economic models yourself, and defending the assumptions – ideally in an early‑stage startup or deep‑tech commercialisation environment.
• Negotiating with suppliers, and translating technical constraints into commercial language for customers, partners and investors.

How you work

• Comfortable working on a moving target – our formulations are still developing and your priorities will change with them.
• A genuine “roll your sleeves up” mentality – no ego, just action; you will run the batch yourself, and tell the science team what they do not want to hear, with the evidence to back it.
• Credible with a multinational’s engineering team and with a contractor on site; comfortable with international partners (German, Mandarin or Japanese a plus).

Our Culture and What We Offer

We are an ambitious, collaborative, results‑oriented startup, for people who take ownership, move with urgency and want to do the best work of their careers. We offer:

• Meaningful equity in a company at the start of its scale‑up, plus 28 days of paid holiday annually.
• High autonomy from day one, working directly with the CEO and CTO, and a clear path to leading our process engineering function, with a team, as we grow.
• Access to world‑class investors, advisors and industry leaders, and the chance to build a category‑defining company.

Join Us

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