Mechanical Engineer - Test Fixtures

Charm Industrial

Fort Lupton, CO, United States

Posted on: 2024-01-12

Category: renewables

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Employment type:

Full time

Experience required:

Intermediate

Salary

Salary not provided

About the company:

Charm Industrial is working to return the atmosphere to 280 ppm CO₂. We design, build and operate a fleet of mobile fast pyrolyzers that convert ag and forest biomass residues into bio-oil for use in carbon removal and direct-reduced-iron steelmaking.

In 2020 our Chief Scientist and co-founder Shaun Meehan had two breakthroughs (bio-oil intermediate and bio-oil sequestration) that kickstarted the company. Within 10 months we completed our first carbon removal injection and in 2021 we completed more than 5,000 tons of CO₂e removal for customers like Stripe, Shopify and Microsoft.

About Charm

Our mission is to reverse climate change and return the atmosphere to 280 ppm CO₂, profitably. We convert waste biomass into carbon-rich bio-oil and inject it into permanent, underground storage as carbon removal, or reform the bio-oil to produce syngas for fossil-free steel.

Our carbon removal pathway took off in 2020 with initial purchases from customers like Stripe, Shopify & Microsoft. In 2021 and 2022 we delivered thousands of tons of carbon removal via off-the-shelf pathways, and also deployed our first R&D prototype pyrolyzer of our own. In the next 18 months, we'll build and deploy the next pyrolyzer revision, demonstrate our fossil-free ironmaking pilot, substantially expand our operations in Colorado and put thousands of tonnes of CO₂e underground.

We're looking to expand our team of ambitious creative and hands-on engineers, fabricators, operators, and forward-thinking humans. We value psychological safety and collaboration. We take calculated risks and don't sweep mistakes under the rug; instead, we pin them to the wall and learn from them. We value that everyone’s unique backgrounds and perspectives shape their work. We encourage you to read our company values.

Come help us reverse climate change. Gigatons or bust!

As a Mechanical Engineer, you will take ownership over our primary full-production pyrolyzer test bench in Colorado, and work with the rest of the engineering team to gain the most value from our pyrolyzers and biomass processing equipment - two critical steps in our mission to scale carbon removal!

You will be responsible for the upkeep, operation, and improvement of our pyrolysis production unit test bench alongside a team of technicians, and you will work alongside our sustaining engineering team to help them execute tests in Fort Lupton. You will collaborate with the engineering managers responsible for pyrolysis development and sustaining to determine the most appropriate and purpose-driven tests. Your test bench will be critical in shaping both current and future pyrolyzers, so ensuring the production of robust and actionable data will be paramount. Every day will be different as you lead the hands-on assembly and integration of hardware, analyze and organize data, and work with others to help determine the critical path forward for the company.

The first planned test campaign for our pyrolyzer will be to determine the most efficient biomass processing specifications. You will work with technicians to ensure the hardware is in good working order, execute the test, make improvements to the equipment as you go, and report out key learnings. Then, you will transition to supporting the sustaining engineering team as they try out new solutions to improve the uptime and efficiency of our production pyrolyzers. This may include building different assemblies, installing them on your test stand, and running them through the paces.

Although based in Fort Lupton, CO you will report to the Head of Engineering in San Francisco. However, you may transition to the engineering manager brought in to run the operations engineering team. You will also have counterparts in the San Francisco office who will be operating similar pyrolysis equipment, and therefore you will build a partnership across the two Charm offices. Best and most importantly, your continual improvement and thorough knowledge of our testing equipment will ensure our hardware will be ready to go out and start saving the world!

What We Offer

· Stock options

· Health benefits (medical, dental, vision)

· Traditional and Roth 401(k)

· Paid time off, including parental leave

- A yearly professional development stipend

· Healthy snacks and lunches at a sweet workplace with lots of space inside and out

· A chance to pivot into a role in climate!

Visa Sponsorship Policy

Since we are a small startup, certain accommodations for visa sponsorship may not be within our capability. At this time, Charm Industrial is only sponsoring E3 and TN visas.

Our Commitment

Charm Industrial is an equal opportunity employer with a firm commitment to growing our team in an inclusive way, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, medical condition, age, or veteran status. The consequences of climate change inherently affect some more than others, and we need a diverse team to help us save our little planet most effectively & justly. We are excited about all of those who choose to apply, and for those who end up joining us, to see how you better us as a team and company. We are more than the sum of our parts.

Responsibilities:

Take complete mechanical and electrical ownership over our test pyrolyzer, making it the best piece of testing infrastructure around.

Work alongside both the pyrolysis and operations engineering teams to utilize this test pyrolyzer for the most actionable learnings at Charm, primarily to improve equipment we are operating today.

Keep rigorous data collection standards to ensure we’re learning the same things each time from the test, and we can feel confident comparing results across tests.

Work alongside technicians to execute tests and turnarounds of the equipment.

Requirements:

5+ years of experience in developing physical hardware, ideally a test bench.

A self-starter who can identify mechanical improvements that will make the system more operable, and the engineering acumen to see those through to completion.

Proven ability to own a piece of hardware’s continual improvement and development.

Experience building simple data collection frameworks and the attention to detail to ensure all data is captured in the same way throughout the test campaign.

A desire to be hands on with equipment more than half the time.