R&D Engineer – Polymer Compounding

About the role

The R&D Engineer will support the compounding laboratory in Shanghai, assisting the lab manager with routine activities, technical support, and process innovation. You will work closely with product development, manufacturing, and operations teams to ensure robust compounding processes and successful scale‑up.

Key responsibilities

• Assist the lab manager in overseeing the compounding team to meet KPI targets.
• Monitor pilot‑plant compounding processes during development and sample production, ensuring process robustness.
• Develop and deliver process guidelines, set up parameters for new processes, and conduct Design of Experiments (DOE) for challenging products.
• Prepare synthesis lab reports and share key findings with stakeholders.
• Verify compounding process windows before production trials and communicate results to manufacturing teams.
• Collaborate with product development, manufacturing, and operations to implement improvement plans and support critical production trials.
• Lead lab digitalization and automation initiatives to reduce human error and enable data‑driven analysis.
• Stay updated on state‑of‑the‑art compounding technologies and drive process innovation aligned with market needs.

Required profile

• Master’s degree in Polymer Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering or a related field (hands‑on experience may substitute).
• Minimum 3 years of experience in engineering plastics compounding as an R&D process engineer, product developer, or plant process engineer.
• Strong knowledge of scale‑up, industrialization, and statistical analysis using Lean Six Sigma methodologies.
• Excellent communication skills in English.

Required skills

• Engineering plastics compounding
• Scale‑up and industrialization
• Statistical analysis
• Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies
• Design of Experiments (DOE)
• Process optimization
• Lab digitalization and automation