Head of R&D and Lab Ops

CREW Carbon•New York, NY

2d•$120,000 - $180,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As Head of R&D and Lab Ops at CREW Carbon, you will serve as a technical authority on the science underlying CREW’s wastewater process optimization and decarbonization solution. This role requires a wastewater treatment and aqueous chemistry expert who can interpret complex data to drive internal R&D and lab operations, working in close partnership across functions to ensure that science translates cleanly into what CREW designs, deploys, and delivers. You will play a pivotal role in accelerating the application of CREW’s technology by translating biological treatment process data from laboratory studies and full-scale deployments into rigorous, defensible technical insight. You will quantify and articulate the value CREW delivers through process intensification within biological treatment systems — including the carbon removal performance that underpins CREW’s MRV work — and you will drive the internal data collection, analysis, and modeling required to support those conclusions and enable scale across treatment facilities. This role will work closely with CREW Carbon’s world-class Advisory, Commercial, and Technical Solutions teams to define scientific priorities, mentor lab and R&D team members, and drive CREW’s mission through innovative research and rigorous analysis.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree (required) in Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related field.
10+ years of hands-on experience in biological wastewater treatment process engineering — process evaluation, design, or modeling.
Strong understanding of wastewater treatment processes, including nutrient removal, solids handling, and pH and alkalinity control.
Comfortable leading and growing a technical team.
Exceptional technical writing skills, with the ability to translate complex process science into clear, defensible documents.
Experience with process modeling tools (BioWin, SUMO, GPS-X, ASM libraries, or equivalent).
Familiarity with analytical methods used in wastewater and aqueous chemistry system characterization (e.g., IC, TIC, ICP) and ability to interpret analytical data.
Comfortable working in a rapidly evolving environment and able to quickly synthesize new information to proactively adjust focus.
You practice extreme ownership (no task is too small).
You love being in the trenches with your team and working with high empathy.
You have a growth mindset.

Nice To Haves

Professional Engineer (PE) license is a plus.

Responsibilities

Serve as CREW’s senior technical authority on biological nutrient removal (BNR), aqueous chemistry, and process performance, applying this expertise directly to CREW’s deployments and R&D.
Analyze operational and experimental data, identify the metrics that matter, and drive process and product decisions using mass/energy balances and process modeling.
Lead and mentor CREW’s lab/R&D team, setting experimental protocols and data collection standards that rigorously validate process performance.
Apply process engineering expertise to translate lab-scale findings into improvements CREW can deploy at scale.
Collaborate closely with CREW’s Platform and Technical Solutions teams to leverage CREW’s data infrastructure and turn experimental and operational data into actionable product decisions.
Support carbon removal quantification methodology and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) for CREW’s deployments.
Serve as a process-engineering resource to Technical Solutions and Operations when a field issue needs deeper root-cause analysis — diagnosing the underlying process science and feeding fixes back into R&D.
Author technical reports and internal R&D documentation that capture CREW’s process engineering rigor.