Founding Applications Engineer, Coatings

Founding Applications Engineer, Coatings

The short version

You’ll be AegisCoat’s first engineering hire. You’ll build our applications lab in Ann Arbor, then take our coatings onto partners’ production lines: roughly half bench, half customer-facing.

Our materials work. Your job is to make them work every time, on someone else’s line: the application spec, the cure window, the QC check, and the data sheet a partner can qualify against. This is not a research role.

About AegisCoat

Nature solved ice, fog and fouling long before industry did. Arctic fish swim through seawater below freezing without turning to ice. Plants fight off mold and microbes with molecules of their own. AegisCoat turns molecules like these into coatings that beat the toxic legacy chemicals of the 20th century, in the places those chemicals fail worst: ice, fog, salt water and extreme cold.

We’re a University of Michigan spinout, built on a decade of materials research and roughly $11M in DARPA funding. Our robotic discovery platform screens thousands of formulations a week, so new coatings take weeks, not years. Our coatings have been field-tested with the US Army in Alaska, and they’re moving into products now:

• Aegis-Clear: the world’s first permanent anti-frost coating, plus anti-fog, for heat pumps and HVAC coils, eyewear and optics, and glass.

• Aegis-Bio: copper-free, naturally derived marine antifouling for hulls and aquaculture nets.

• Aegis-Gel: thin, flexible thermal insulation for apparel, gloves, footwear and coolers.

We work like Gore-Tex: we’re the ingredient brand inside other companies’ products. Our partners build the products and incorporate our breakthroughs. Our job is to make that work every time, on their lines. We’re a small, funded team. Pilots are launching with a major US utility and an aquaculture operator, and OEMs in HVAC, plumbing, optics and automotive are asking for line trials. You’d join right as our science leaves the lab.

Why this role exists

Customer demand is ahead of our ability to transfer. HVAC, optics, automotive, apparel and marine partners are asking for samples, data and line trials. The formulations come out of our co-founders’ research group at the University of Michigan, and they perform.

Where things break is the handoff: a pilot part that was under-cured, a film thickness nobody specified, a QC step that didn’t exist. You’ll own that handoff, so what works in the lab works on the line.

Your first 90 days

1. Write the first application and QC spec for Aegis-Clear: substrate prep, application method, film thickness window, cure, and pass/fail checks a partner’s operators can run.

2. Produce our first customer-ready technical data sheet for Aegis-Clear on a priority substrate, with the test method named beside every result.

3. Stand up our applications and QC bench in Ann Arbor with our co-founders: spec and order equipment and materials, put chemical safety and batch records in place, and get testing running (spray and dip, film thickness, adhesion, transmittance). University and outside labs fill the gap until our own lab opens.

4. Run your first partner line trial: a test plan on their substrate and process, on site with their engineers, ending in a spec they write into their own process.

What you’ll own

• Lab-to-line transfer. Turning a formulation from our co-founders’ lab into a repeatable process: application method, film build, cure window and rework rules.

• Partner line trials. On site with partner engineers at automotive, HVAC, optics and apparel OEMs, from first coupon to first production run.

• QC and work instructions. Incoming inspection, in-process checks and work instructions a partner writes into their own spec, plus training their operators and quality staff.

• The data customers buy against. Technical and safety data sheets, test methods that hold up to scrutiny, and third-party testing where a claim needs independent proof.

• Pilot material. Small batches and sample kits for customer trials, with batch records. As volume grows, you’ll hire and train our first lab technician.

• The feedback loop. When a substrate or process misbehaves, finding out why and bringing a clear problem statement back to the founders’ lab.

What you bring

Required

• BS or MS in chemical, materials, polymer or mechanical engineering, or equivalent experience. A PhD is not required, and research experience is not what we’re hiring for.

• 4+ years as an applications, process or coatings engineer at a coatings, films or adhesives supplier, or at an OEM that applies them.

• Has qualified a new material on a production line and written the work instructions.

• Hands-on with application methods (spray, dip, drawdown, lamination), cure (thermal, UV) and standard coating tests (film thickness, adhesion, abrasion, environmental cycling).

• Documentation discipline: protocols, batch records and data that survive a customer’s or investor’s review.

• Comfort being our first engineer and setting your own priorities, with our co-founders close by for technical depth.

• Hands-on lab operations: equipment setup, chemical safety and ordering supplies.

Strongly preferred

• Films, laminates or pressure-sensitive adhesives.

• Anti-fog, hydrophilic, anti-microbial / anti-fouling or other functional coatings.

• Automotive, HVAC or optics quality systems (PPAP, APQP, IATF 16949).

• Federal program reporting (DARPA, DoD, SBIR/STTR).

The path

This role is built to grow into Head of Applications Engineering, with your own team, as we scale from pilot batches to licensed production.

Compensation and benefits

• Base salary: $100,000–$115,000, depending on experience. Base is reviewed at each financing round.

• Equity: a meaningful early-employee grant, four-year vesting with a one-year cliff.

• Benefits: health benefits.

• Lab budget: you’ll spec and equip our Ann Arbor lab from a funded budget in our plan.

How to apply

Apply with the form on this page, or email [email protected] with “Applications Engineer” in the subject line. Send your CV and a few lines answering one question:

Tell us about a material you got running on a production line, and the problem that almost stopped it.

We care about that answer more than a cover letter.

We’ll ask early about any current university appointment and any IP you’ve assigned to a prior employer or lab, so there are no surprises later.

AegisCoat is an equal opportunity employer. We don’t discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected status. If you need an accommodation at any point in the process, tell us in your note.