Development Engineering Internship

Development Engineering Internship

Phinite is a startup dedicated to making agriculture sustainable. Our novel waste drying system transforms animal waste into renewable fertilizer which is exported off animal farms and sold. Revenues are shared between Phinite and farmers – offering farmers a profitable model for waste recycling. Our system is an automated waste dryer, which uses air and mechanical agitation of waste material to achieve drying.

Drying systems are built on individual farms, and the final dry material is collected and sold through centralized fertilizer sales channels.

Phinite has multiple summer internship opportunities for motivated and skilled candidates. Projects include:

• Developing processes to optimise our drying process by assisting with airflow design and mechanical agitation.
• Development of sensor packages to assist with monitoring drying performance and optimising operations.
• Development of improved methods to extract material from hog farm anaerobic lagoons, including solids-handling pump use and mechanical design.
• Modelling of wind conditions and developing energy balance models for drying processes.

Experience in hardware, machinery development and low-energy drying systems (eg. Solar drying) is useful. Experience in dredging, concrete or other high-solids pumping is also interesting. Experience in Arduino and Raspberry Pi's is also useful. Aptitude and resourcefulness will trump specifics though in our competencies so please include any demonstration of past projects, professional or private.

This is a paid position, with a rate of $15-20/hr depending on experience. For the right fit, there are opportunities for ongoing work with Phinite post-graduation.

We will discuss travel arrangements and logistics depending on the skills of the applicants and the projects being undertaken.

Phinite makes phosphorus a renewable resource while also generating profit from what was previously a waste stream. At Phinite we strive to build a resilient global food system, so that future generations have the opportunity to thrive.

Phinite's mission is to make food production sustainable by improving natural resource use within the global food system. We seek to develop technologies with profitable models for adoption so that they have the greatest opportunity to scale and to deliver substantial change across the global food system.

We seek people who:

• Are as passionate about our mission as we are
• Are excited about working at a startup with great potential to scale
• Are honest, communicate problems clearly, and work collaboratively to find the solutions
• Are creative and can develop simple solutions to complex problems

If you are interested, please respond by email to  with demonstration of past projects, professional or private, and why you are interested in working with Phinite. A CV is helpful but not critical as a starting point.