Senior Chemical Process Engineer

KoBold Metals; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

KoBold Metals is seeking a Chemical/Process Engineer to advance its mission in mineral processing. The role involves evaluating new technologies, designing tests, and collaborating with teams to optimize ore processing methods. This position offers a chance to contribute to the energy transition through innovative mineral processing solutions in a dynamic, remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• Experience as a chemist, chemical or process engineer.
• Track record of scaling chemical processes from bench to production.
• Excellent communication skills for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Identify and evaluate emerging mineral processing technologies.
• Develop technoeconomic models to compare processing technologies.
• Collaborate with exploration teams and mine engineers.

Skills

First principle thinking

Technoeconomic modeling

Laboratory analytical methods

Process control methods

Experimental design

Tools

Aspen HYSYS

HSC

METSIM

JKSimMet

JKSimFloat

Job description

The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear – even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. In the six years since founding, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists.

KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality discovery.

We are hiring a Chemical/Process Engineer to help accelerate our mission.

About the position

In this role, you will identify and evaluate emerging mineral processing technologies suitable for processing and refining ore produced by KoBold projects. You will consider opportunities and model tradeoffs and process options from ore to final metal product. You will design and implement tests with processing partners to evaluate a wide variety of process steps such as communition, leaching, flotation, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, direct ion extraction, and in-situ leaching. You will work closely with our metallurgy and commercial teams to identify cost and environmentally optimal methods to process specific KoBold ore compositions.

Ultimately, your role is to help KoBold process the metals needed to enable the energy transition by driving evaluation and partnerships for next generation mineral processing.

Responsibilities

The Chemical/Process Engineer will:

• Identify and rigorously evaluate emerging mineral processing technologies that are suitable for ore produced by KoBold.
• Develop technoeconomic models from first principles to compare mineral processing technologies.
• Collaborate with KoBold's exploration teams, metallurgists, and mine engineers to understand process technology tradeoffs.
• Model and simulate process flows from mine to product.
• Help develop KoBold’s proprietary process modeling tools, building a deep understanding of mining and mineral processing sufficient to identify and execute on technology development opportunities.
• Build partnerships, source, and contract with vendors to develop and customize chemical processing that solves KoBold’s mineral processing needs.
• Design and evaluate results of lab tests to understand performance implications of bench scale results extended to plant scale.
• Present to and collaborate with our external partners and stakeholders.

Qualifications

A great Chemical/Process Engineer candidate will have:

• A successful track record of scaling a chemical process from the bench into production.
• Excellent communication skills for a highly interdisciplinary workplace.

Technical skills, including extensive experience with:

• First principle thinking and technoeconomic modeling.
• Applying scientific knowledge to identify and evaluate emerging technologies.
• Laboratory analytical and process control methods.
• Experimental design and analysis.

Training and work experience:

• Experience as a chemist, chemical or process engineer.

Work practices and motivation:

• Ability to take ownership and responsibility of large projects
• Enjoys constantly learning such that you are driving insights and innovations
• Ability to explain technical problems to and collaborate on solutions with domain experts who aren’t chemical or processing experts
• Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
• Ability to independently prioritize multiple tasks effectively

It is also helpful but not required to have experience with:

• Geochemical and mineralogical data
• Pyro and hydrometallurgy
• Kiloton to megaton per year plant design/build/operation
• Commercial process modeling software such as Aspen HYSYS, HSC, METSIM, JKSimMet/JKSimFloat, etc.
• Project management

KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunities for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.

The US base salary range for this full-time exempt position is: $180-240K

Location: KoBold is a remote first workplace, we are open to candidates currently residing anywhere in the United States or Canada. All candidates must be authorized to legally work in either the United States or Canada.

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