Senior Energetics Development Engineer

Ohr; Lafayette (CO); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Ohr in Lafayette, CO is seeking a senior process engineer bridging chemistry and scale-up. You’ll translate bench data into early designs, work with an external partner lab, and generate the data that informs pilot decisions.

This onsite role requires 7–10+ years in R&D and process engineering, experience with scale-up campaigns, external collaborations, and strong analytical writing. Relocation assistance may be provided.

Qualifications

• Degree in chemical engineering or chemistry required
• 7–10+ years in R&D and process engineering
• Experience scaling up from lab to kilo-lab
• Experience coordinating with external laboratories
• Ability to design experiments and interpret incomplete data
• Ability to build defensible mass and energy balances
• Strong technical writing and design-basis documentation

Responsibilities

• Translate bench and small-scale results into early engineering designs (mass and energy balances)
• Interface with external partner laboratory: shape test plans and interpret results
• Design and run kilo-lab and small-scale campaigns for scale-up data
• Define analytical and characterization requirements with chemists
• Generate early hazard characterization data for safety case
• Document design basis, assumptions and open risks
• Hand off to production process engineering and stay engaged through initial campaigns

Skills

Scale-up campaigns

External labs

DOE

Applied statistics

Data interpretation

Technical writing

Mass balances

Energy balances

Education

BS, MS, or PhD in chemical engineering or chemistry

Job description

The future must be created.

01 THE ROLE

Chemistry is the invisible layer under every critical system, and the supply chain behind it has become a weapon. Ohr makes the molecules that matter most, from the atom up: energetics, propellants, rare-earth extractants and the ignition chemicals already in production today.

This role sits in the gap where most energetics programs stall — between chemistry that works at the bench and a process someone can actually build. You’ll work directly with our R&D chemists and with our external partner laboratory, read their results as an engineer, and turn them into the early designs that scale-up decisions get made from.

THE KIND OF PEOPLE THIS WORK DEMANDS

Our mission demands more than great science. It requires a particular kind of team — visionary builders, hustlers, scientists, operators. Together, we carry both the technical depth to make the chemistry work and the commercial instinct to make the business thrive. People are our engine. Collaboration is our multiplier.

02 WHAT YOU’LL DESIGN AND BUILD

• Translate bench and small-scale results from our R&D chemists into early engineering designs — mass and energy balances, block flow diagrams, preliminary equipment concepts, and technoeconomic inputs
• Serve as the engineering interface to our external partner laboratory: shape test plans, interpret results, and pull them into our design basis
• Design and run kilo-lab and small-scale campaigns that generate the data a scale-up decision needs, not just the data that is easy to get
• Define analytical and characterization requirements alongside the chemists — specify what good looks like before anyone commits capital
• Generate early hazard characterization data, including sensitivity, DSC and TGA, and compatibility studies, so the safety case starts with the design instead of catching up to it
• Document design basis, assumptions, and open risks so the process engineering team inherits something defensible
• Hand off to production process engineering and stay engaged through the first campaigns

03 WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU

You’re bilingual in a way most engineers aren’t: you can follow a synthesis discussion with chemists in the morning and defend a mass balance to a process engineer in the afternoon. You get impatient with promising bench results that nobody has costed, and you’re the person who asks what the next scale will need before the current one is finished. You likely have:

• A degree in chemical engineering or chemistry — BS, MS, or PhD
• 7–10+ years across R&D and process engineering, with genuine time on both sides rather than a brief tour of one
• Experience running or supporting scale-up campaigns from laboratory to kilo-lab scale
• Experience working through external laboratories, partners, or contract research organizations
• Comfort with design of experiments, applied statistics, and data that arrives incomplete
• The ability to build a defensible mass and energy balance from imperfect bench data and state your assumptions plainly
• Strong technical writing — design basis documents are a deliverable, not an afterthought

Strong plus

• Energetics, propellants, or pyrotechnics experience
• Nitration or energetic precursor chemistry experience
• Technoeconomic modeling and early-stage cost estimation
• Thermal hazard analysis (DSC, TGA, ARC) and small-scale sensitivity testing

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

AFTER 3 MONTHS

• You’re the engineering voice in R&D reviews, and the partner laboratory relationship runs through you

AFTER 6–12 MONTHS

• At least one formulation has a documented design basis and early engineering package good enough to commit pilot capital against
• R&D campaigns are designed around the data scale-up actually needs
• The handoff from development to process engineering is a repeatable process rather than a series of meetings

04 COMPENSATION

This is an onsite role based in the Denver–Boulder Metro Area (Lafayette, CO), with travel up to 15% to laboratories, partner facilities, and test sites. Relocation Assistance provided. The annual base salary range for this position is $140,000 – $180,000, commensurate with experience, plus equity. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, experience, and qualifications.

Be a creationary.