Staff Mechanical Engineer

Circularity Fuels•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

We are hiring an engineer to lead the design of novel chemical reactors, taking them from concept through to Code-stamped hardware running in the field. Our reactors handle flammable gases at high pressure and moderate temperatures (200 to 400°C). The central challenges are heat management, materials and joining, and pressure vessel qualification under ASME Section VIII, Division 1, all at a cost that works for commercial deployment. You will choose among competing design approaches and carry the best one into production.

Requirements

BS in Mechanical Engineering, or a related field. An MS or PhD is valued.
8+ years designing and delivering pressure equipment, ideally reactors or compact heat exchangers for flammable or high-pressure gas service.
Hands-on experience getting equipment through ASME Section VIII, Division 1, including working directly with an Authorized Inspector.
Experience developing and qualifying brazing or welding procedures under Section IX.
A solid grounding in metallurgy and materials selection for high-pressure, elevated-temperature gas service, including joint failure modes.
Proficiency in thermal-structural FEA (ANSYS, Abaqus or equivalent) and in heat transfer analysis. You should be comfortable carrying a problem from a hand calculation all the way to a detailed model.
A record of taking hardware from concept through fabrication, test and operation, not just analysis.
Comfort working in a startup: moving quickly with incomplete information, running coupon tests to settle questions, and being hands-on in the lab and on the shop floor.

Nice To Haves

Experience with brazed, diffusion-bonded or other non-welded construction is a strong plus.
Experience with Fischer-Tropsch, methanol or other strongly exothermic catalytic reactors, especially packed-bed or microchannel designs.
Experience with boiling-water or two-phase cooled equipment.
Familiarity with electroplating, photochemical machining, stamping or roll forming of thin sheet.
Experience qualifying equipment for hydrogen or CO service.
Experience managing international fabrication vendors.
Prior work at a hardware startup or on a first-of-a-kind process plant.

Responsibilities

Own reactor mechanical design end to end: pressure boundary, internals, headers and manifolds, catalyst handling, flow distribution, and integration into modular skids.
Lead design selection. Evaluate competing architectures on heat transfer, manufacturability, Code path and cost, and settle on designs in time for each build.
Own the ASME Code path. Take designs through ASME Section VIII, Division 1, including non-welded construction where it applies. Be our main technical contact with the Authorized Inspector and fabricators' quality programs.
Develop and qualify joining procedures (brazing and welding) under ASME Section IX, with coupon programs, metallography, and burst and leak testing.
Run thermal and structural analysis: thermal stress, cycling and fatigue, and pressure loading, tied to our process, kinetics and CFD models.
Own materials selection and compatibility for hydrogen, CO and other flammable gases, steam, and catalysts.
Design for safe operation with flammable gas at pressure: relief, containment, leak detection, and hazard reviews (HAZOP) alongside the process team.
Build the supply chain: material suppliers, finishing and forming vendors, braze shops and pressure vessel fabricators, domestic and international. Write the specs and drawings they build to.
Take prototypes from drawing to test: coupons, prototype modules, pressure and leak testing, and instrumented testing on process gas.
Design for scale. Carry designs from demonstration units to commercial modules built the same way in quantity, with cost treated as a primary design parameter.