Engineer III/Senior Engineer, Adsorbent Chemistry

Alta Resource Technologies•Boulder, CO

6d•Onsite

About The Position

Alta Resource Technologies (Alta) is a next-generation mining company founded in 2023 that uses synthetic biology to separate critical minerals from conventional and unconventional resources, including e-waste. The company is expanding its team in Boulder, Colorado, to help address rising mineral demand and develop more sustainable supply technologies. The Engineer III/Senior Engineer, Adsorbent Chemistry will join a small R&D team working on the resins and adsorbents at the center of Alta’s separation process. The role establishes in-house resin synthesis and functionalization capabilities, develops analytical methods to characterize resin properties and performance, and iteratively improves adsorbent materials to meet process performance, reproducibility, and scale-up requirements. It is a bench-heavy position, with approximately 70% hands-on laboratory work. The position develops porous resin synthesis, surface functionalization, and ligand-attachment methods; qualifies analytical methods for resin composition, functional group density, ligand loading, porosity, and particle properties; and relates material properties to protein immobilization, adsorption capacity, selectivity, stability, and separation performance. It establishes reproducible bench workflows, optimizes reaction conditions, identifies critical process parameters, and translates workflows into specifications for larger-scale production and integration into adsorbent manufacturing. The role also involves maintaining rigorous experimental records, authoring SOPs and test methods, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating results, risks, and recommendations to cross-functional R&D and process engineering teams, executives, and external stakeholders. The engineer plans, documents, and executes experiments related to sorbent synthesis and characterization, including troubleshooting and identifying next steps.

Requirements

B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in chemical engineering, polymer science and engineering, materials science, chemistry, or a closely related field; hands-on laboratory experience working with porous materials is required. M.S. or Ph.D. is highly preferred.
Experience requirements by degree: B.S., 5–7+ years; M.S., 3–5+ years; Ph.D., 2+ years.
Hands-on experience synthesizing porous polymer or inorganic materials, including ability to explain formulation and process variables changed and how pore structure responded.
Working command of at least two porosity or particle characterization techniques, such as N₂/Ar physisorption (BET, BJH, or DFT pore size distributions), mercury intrusion porosimetry, inverse size-exclusion chromatography, SEM, or laser diffraction particle sizing.
Practical wet-chemistry experience on solid supports, including covalent surface modifications and quantification using titration, elemental analysis, colorimetric assay, or an equivalent method.
Demonstrated ability to run structured experimental campaigns, isolate variables, design around confounds, and draw defensible conclusions.
Rigorous documentation habits, including detailed ELN records and authorship of SOPs or test methods successfully followed by others.
Comfort operating with limited supervision amid shifting priorities in a fast-paced R&D environment.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience making cross-linked porous beads by suspension, emulsion, or dispersion polymerization using a porogen or diluent to drive phase separation, including styrene–divinylbenzene, methacrylate/acrylate systems, polyHIPE, or seeded-swelling (Ugelstad) routes.
Post-polymerization modification of a porous support, including chloromethylation, epoxide ring-opening, amination, or activation chemistries such as NHS ester, maleimide, aldehyde, tosyl, or epoxy.
Immobilization of proteins, peptides, or enzymes on a solid support, with measurement of loading, retained activity, and leaching.
Packed-bed column evaluation, including breakthrough curves, dynamic binding capacity, pressure drop, and multi-cycle load/elute/regenerate studies.
Materials lifetime and degradation testing, including evaluation of chemical and mechanical stability under aggressive process conditions over repeated use cycles.
Scale-up from gram to kilogram batches and tech transfer to a toll manufacturer or CMO.
Experience with design of experiments and statistical analysis.
Prior experience at a resin, chromatography media, or adsorbent manufacturer.
Proven ability to lead projects, method development, and data analysis, and provide advanced technical leadership across projects.
Background in bioseparations or protein chromatography, polymer and colloid chemistry, or sorbent and separations engineering.

Responsibilities

Develop and implement in-house methods for porous resin synthesis, surface functionalization, and ligand attachment to produce adsorbents with defined chemical and physical properties.
Develop and qualify analytical methods for resin composition, functional group density, ligand loading, porosity, and particle properties, while understanding the limitations of each method.
Connect resin properties to process outcomes, including protein immobilization, adsorption capacity, selectivity, stability, and separation performance, in collaboration with protein chemistry and process engineering teams.
Establish reproducible bench-scale synthesis and functionalization workflows, optimize reaction conditions, and identify critical process parameters governing resin quality.
Translate workflows into process specifications for larger-scale production and support integration into adsorbent manufacturing workflows.
Maintain rigorous experimental records, author SOPs and test methods, and analyze and interpret data.
Communicate results, risks, and recommendations to cross-functional R&D and process engineering teams, executives, and external stakeholders.
Plan, document, and execute detailed experiments related to sorbent synthesis and characterization, including troubleshooting and identifying next steps.