Sorption Process Engineer (MOF / Adsorption)

We're building HydraBox, a portable, solar-powered device that pulls drinking water out of dry air. We need someone to own the sorbent side: MOF characterization, cycling tests, and the energy math that decides whether a liter is worth its watts. It's 7 months at 32 hrs/week for $10,000/month plus 1% equity, contingent on an NSF SBIR Phase I award (expected start around May 2027). Small founder-led team, and you get a real say in what we test next.

ABOUT THALRAEN
Thalraen is a Bay Area hardware startup building HydraBox, a portable, solar-powered device that pulls drinking water out of the air, including dry air where condensation-only systems struggle. We're a small, founder-led team with a provisional patent filed, preparing an NSF SBIR Phase I proposal on a sorbent-plus-thermoelectric approach.

THE ROLE
You'll own the sorbent side of the system. That means characterizing how a MOF takes up and releases water, running cycling tests, and tuning the adsorption and desorption cycle and the heat and mass transfer so each liter costs as little energy as possible. You'll work directly with the founder and a mechanical design engineer to decide how the sorbent bed lives inside the hardware. Seven months, a small team, and a real say in what gets tested next.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Characterize candidate sorbents: water-vapor isotherms, uptake kinetics, cycling stability.
• Build and run bench tests on sorbent beds: temperature-swing cycling, humidity-chamber runs, mass-balance measurements.
• Measure and model heat and mass transfer in the bed, find where the energy goes, and cut it.
• Write bed requirements (geometry, packing, thermal coupling) and iterate them with the mechanical engineer on physical prototypes.
• Own test protocols and data, and write results that feed NSF Phase I milestones and reports.
• Decide what to test next and what to drop.

YOU'RE A FIT IF
• You hold a BS, MS or PhD in chemical engineering, materials science, chemistry or a close field.
• You have hands-on experience with solid sorbents (MOFs, zeolites, silica gel, activated carbon or desiccants) in a lab or pilot setting.
• You can run water-vapor sorption measurements and analyze the data in Python, MATLAB or similar.
• Your heat and mass transfer fundamentals are solid.
• You're self-directed: you've built, fixed or started something nobody asked you to.

BONUS
• MOF synthesis or handling
• Direct air capture, desiccant dehumidification, or adsorption heat pump or chiller work
• Thermoelectrics
• COMSOL or similar modeling
• Startup experience, papers or patents

TERMS
• Fixed-term W-2 employee, 32 hours/week for 7 months, $10,000/month, plus 1% equity (terms finalized in the offer).
• This position is contingent on Thalraen receiving an NSF SBIR Phase I award. We expect work to begin around May 2027 if awarded. An award is not guaranteed.
• You must be authorized to work in the US; we can't sponsor visas.
• Finalists will be asked for a short letter of commitment to support our NSF proposal.

HOW TO APPLY
Apply through Wellfound with your CV or LinkedIn and 3 to 5 sentences on the most interesting thing you've built or figured out that nobody asked you to.