Design Engineer (New Product Development

About Shellworks

At Shellworks, we’re on a mission to make plastic waste a thing of the past. We’ve created a new generation of materials - sustainable, high-performing, and designed to disappear. All of our materials are broken down by microorganisms in the soil. By reimagining how plastics are made, we’re tackling one of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges. We’ve already shipped millions of groundbreaking products and now we’re designing the next ones that are going to change the world.

You’ll be joining a team of experts in materials science, design and manufacturing who are obsessed with sustainability and innovation.

London, N4

4 days in our office, 1 day from home

£40,000 - 50,000 pa + equity

At Shellworks, we’re on a mission to make plastic waste a thing of the past. We’ve created a new generation of materials - sustainable, high-performing, and designed to disappear. All of our materials are broken down by microorganisms in the soil. By reimagining how plastics are made, we’re tackling one of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges. We’ve already shipped millions of groundbreaking products and now we’re designing the next ones that are going to change the world.

You’ll be joining a team of experts in materials science, design and manufacturing who are obsessed with sustainability and innovation.

Here are some of the people you’ll work with:

Your mission in this role is to accelerate the uptake of Vivomer products into the market through relentless creative problem solving, designing excellent products, upholding the highest quality standards and delivering delightful experiences to customers. You will use your expertise in design and engineering every day to create solutions for customers that break down barriers of what people think is possible in a plastic-free product.

The products you invent will be in people’s hands within 6 months, all designed to be healthier in use and to disappear after disposal.

• Lead the technical execution of multiple new product development projects at a time. You will bridge the gap between the commercial team and the wider technical team, providing ambitious but realistic technical feasibility assessments for new projects and supporting customer proposals.
• Apply engineering and design principles to every aspect of your role, to systematically solve problems and overcome barriers.
• Coordinate closely with manufacturing and operations to ensure your designs can be produced and delivered in the millions of units.
• Brainstorm and generate new technical concepts that will help to propel Shellworks forwards by proliferating Vivomer into new applications and new markets.
• Help to optimize our internal digital tracking tools to monitor technical progress, failures in the field and project milestones.
• Streamline our design engineering processes to help scale our successful project throughput in 2027 to double what it is today, constantly pushing to reduce NPD cycles.
• Champion high quality industrial design and build our brand’s physical identity, working closely with our talented creative team.

• Holds a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering or Product Design Engineering
• Has 2 years of industry experience working in physical product development
• Is highly skilled in: 3D Modelling, Technical Drawing, CAM, DFM, DFA, Simulation, Sketching, Rendering
• Is a physical maker, experienced in rapid prototyping, working with hand tools, power tools and workshop equipment
• Can design, make, test and iterate designs quickly, based on product specifications they have built according to industry standards and customer requirements
• Can technically execute product development from customer specification to first order delivery with close consideration of commercial context and manufacturing scale-up considerations
• Is a visual thinker who comes up with and follows through on creative solutions that are beyond what has been tried before
• Is obsessed with great design and high quality products
• Is familiar with conventional plastics manufacturing processes and basic…